WORKAROUND
THE GLOBE, VOL. I
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Fighting for a Living
A Comparative History of
Military Labour 1500-2000
Edited by
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
• AMSTERDAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
Fighting for a Living
Work Around the Globe: Historical
Comparisons and Connections
Open Access Book Series of the International Institute of
Social History (IISH)
Most human beings work, and growing numbers are exposed to labour markets.
These markets are increasingly globally competitive and cause both capital and
labour to move around the world. In search of the cheapest labour, industries
and service-based enterprises move from West to East and South, but also, for
example, westwards from China's east coast. People move from areas with few
employment opportunities to urban and industrial hubs, both between and
within continents. However, labour relations have been shifting already for
centuries, labour migrations go back far in time, and changing labour relations
cannot be comprehended without history. Therefore, understanding these
developments and their consequences in the world of work and labour relations
requires sound historical research, based on the experiences of different groups of
workers in different parts of the world at different moments in time, throughout
human history.
The research and publications department of the International Institute of Social
History (IISH) has taken on a leading role in research and publishing on the
global history of labour relations. In the context of Global Labour History, three
central research questions have been defined: (1) What labour relations have
emerged in parallel with the rise and advance of market economies? (2) How
can their incidence (and consequently the transition from one labour relation to
another) be explained, and are these worldwide transitions interlinked? (3) What
are the social, economic, political, and cultural consequences of their changing
incidence, and how do they relate to forms of individual and collective agency
among workers? These three questions are interconnected in time, but also in
space. Recent comparative Global Labour History research demonstrates that
shifts in one part of the globe have always been linked to shifts in other parts.
Series editor: Jan Lucassen, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Editorial Board: Ulbe Bosma, Karin Hofmeester, Gijs Kessler, International
Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Executive editor: Aad Blok, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
Fighting for a Living
A Comparative History of Military Labour
1500-2000
Edited by
Erik-Jan Zurcher
Amsterdam University Press
Cover illustration: 'A Turkish Janissary', c. 1480, Gentile Bellini (Venetian, c. 1429-1507)
© The British Museum Company Limited
Cover design: Studio Jan de Boer, Amsterdam
Layout: Crius Group, Hulshout
Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and Canada by
the University of Chicago Press.
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Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND
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© Erik-Jan Ziircher / Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2013
Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of
this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise).
In memory of Gilles Veinstein (1945-2013)
Contents
Preface 9
Introduction 11
Understanding changes in military recruitment and employment
worldwide
Erik-Jan Ziircher
Military labor in China, c. 1500 43
David M. Robinson
From the mamluks to the mansabdars 81
A social history of military service in South Asia, c. 1500 to c. 1650
Kaushik Roy
On the Ottoman janissaries (fourteenth-nineteenth centuries) 115
Gilles Veinstein
Soldiers in Western Europe, c. 1500-1790 135
Frank Tallett
The Scottish mercenary as a migrant labourer in Europe, 1550-1650 169
James Miller
Change and continuity in mercenary armies: Central Europe, 1650-1750 201
Michael Sikora
Peasants fighting for a living in early modern North India 243
DirkKA.Kolff
"True to their salt" 267
Mechanisms for recruiting and managing military labour in the
army of the East India Company during the Carnatic Wars in India
Robert Johnson
"The scum of every county, the refuse of mankind"
Recruiting the British Army in the eighteenth century
Peter Way
291
Mobilization of warrior populations in the Ottoman context,
1750-1850
Virginia H. Aksan
33i
Military employment in Qing dynasty China 353
Christine Moll-Murata and Ulrica Theobald
Military service and the Russian social order, 1649-1861 393
Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter
The French army, 1789-1914 419
Volunteers, pressed soldiers, and conscripts
Thomas Hippler
The Dutch army in transition 447
From all-volunteer force to cadre-militia army, 1795-1830
Herman Amersfoort
The draft and draftees in Italy, 1861-1914 479
Marco Rovinello
Nation-building, war experiences, and European models 519
The rejection of conscription in Britain
Jorn Leonhard
Mobilizing military labor in the age of total war 547
Ottoman conscription before and during the Great War
MehmetBesikci
Soldiering as work 581
The all-volunteer force in the United States
Beth Bailey
Private contractors in war from the 1990s to the present 613
A review essay
S. Yelda Kay a
Collective bibliography 639
Notes on contributors
687
Preface
He's five-foot-two, and he's six-feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
He's been a soldier for a thousand years.
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.
- Buffy Sainte-Marie, "Universal Soldier" (1964)
This pioneering volume is a remarkable international attempt to bridge
the gap between military history and labour history, by exploring the
labour of the military as a subject in its own right. During 2009-2012, a
team of twenty researchers from nine countries led by Erik-Jan Ziircher
systematically reconstructed the similarities and differences between
military recruitment and employment systems in Asia and Europe from
the sixteenth century onwards. Their comparative approach has made
it possible to discover general historical patterns. In turn, these patterns
suggest causal relationships which could, should, and no doubt will be the
subject of more in-depth studies in the future.
Until now, military historians and labour historians inhabited separate
worlds. Military historians were concerned with wars, military doctrines,
arms technology, campaign logistics, and similar issues. For them, soldiers
usually enter into the picture as the executors of commands, and, in the
narrative of military historians, what decides the outcome of battles are the
numbers, skills, weaponry and morale of the combatants. Labour historians
by contrast regard soldiers above all as the oppressors of labour resistance,
who sometimes - in revolutionary situations - change sides and join the
workers. According to many labour historians, what soldiers do as soldiers is
not "work" - since work is constructive, not destructive - but instead a kind
of "anti-work". The military are indeed conventionally excluded from "the
labour force", and therefore they are not counted in labour force statistics.
The idea that what soldiers do "cannot be work" is a moralistic prejudice,
however. Work is the purposeful production of useful objects or services.
Thus, work is a purposive activity, and work creates objects or services that
are useful to the people for whom the work is done. That makes participation
10
in military activities just as much a labour process as any other, even if
many civilians do not regard it as a "useful activity" and have no use for it.
Soldiers' work can involve all kinds of different jobs. Of course, the
subjugation and killing of people and the destruction of enemy positions
are "core tasks", but the military can also perform guard duties, dig ditches,
look after the transport of goods and messages, and construct buildings,
roads, canals, and dams. What most soldiers do in army life obviously differs
from what labourers do in a factory, or nurses in a hospital. Yet, in real life,
soldiers are workers just as much as labourers and nurses are. Significantly,
the English word "mercenary" is derived from the Latin mercenarius, which
literally meant no more than "a hireling", that is, someone who is paid for
his work (in Latin, merx = commodity).
In their team effort, the authors of this volume have made a great
contribution to a new kind of historiography, one that integrates differ-
ent subdisciplines, and incorporates local findings in a globally oriented
approach. The readers of this book have in their hands a path-breaking
collection of essays which, I am sure, will inspire historical research about
military labour for many years to come.
Marcel van der Linden
Amsterdam, March 2013
Introduction
Understanding changes in military recruitment and
employment worldwide
Erik-Jan Zurcher
For a long time, labour historians have not regarded the activities of soldiers
as work. Work was defined as an activity yielding surplus value and the
efforts of soldiers were seen as being essentially destructive rather than
productive. This assumption that military work is necessarily destructive
and does not produce surplus value is debatable for at least two reasons.
The first is that soldiers everywhere spend far more time in barracks than
on campaign and, while they are garrisoned, they have very often been
employed as cheap labour in agriculture or in building works and road
repair. Many of the greatest infrastructural works in countries as far apart
as France and China - city walls, dikes, canals - would never have been
realized except for the massive use of military manpower. Soldiers have
frequently been employed in the wake of natural disasters, in which case
their labour should be regarded as similar to that of nurses and ambulance
drivers. The second, more profound reason is that, as Peter Way has argued,
the end result of warfare, if successful, is that surplus value for states and
their elites is created through territorial gain or economic advantage. 1
Whatever the merits of the argument, the result of the view that what
a soldier does is not work has been that military labour has not become
the object of research in the same way as the labour of, for instance, dock-
workers, textile workers, miners, or agricultural workers. 2 One of the very
first people to resist this approach was Jan Lucassen of the International
Institute of Social History (IISH). As early as 1994, he considered the "pro-
letarian experience" of mercenaries in early modern Europe. 3 That was a
pioneering effort, because it is only very recently that the topic of military
labour has begun to receive attention from social historians. In 2003, Bruce
1 Following Marx, Peter Way closely identifies the growth of capitalism and the modern state
with warfare, particularly, colonial warfare. See Way, "Klassenkrieg".
2 Chris Tilly and Charles Tilly express this point of view in their book Work Under Capitalism,
p. 23: "To be sure, not all efforts qualify as work; purely destructive, expressive, or consumptive
acts lie outside the bound; in so far as they reduce transferable use value, we might think of
them as antiwork."
3 Lucassen, "The Other Proletarians", p. 185.
12
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
Scates published "The Price of War: Labour Historians Confront Military
History", in the Australian journal Labour History, and this journal has
since continued to show an interest in the subject with the publications
of Nathan Wise. 4 However, the scope of the Australian publications had
been limited in time and space (mainly the Australian volunteer army
of the First World War). In 2006, German historical anthropologist Alf
Liidtke published a text with a broader comparative scope - "War as Work:
Aspects of Soldiering in 20th Century War" - which was, however, as the
title implies, limited to the recent past. In 2011, the journal International
Labor and Working-Class History devoted a special feature to "Labor and
the Military", which contained six very interesting articles on the subject.
The approach, however, is different from ours in that the military (or the
army) and labour, both in the sense of work and in that of the workforce,
are seen as two separate elements in the equation, the relation between
which is studied, whereas in the context of Fighting for a Living questions
are asked about military service itself as a form of labour. 5 In our view,
soldiers are not a separate category of people who sometimes fulfil the role
of workers; they are workers.
Another recent initiative that indicates a growing interest in the subject
was a conference at Duke University in April 2011 entitled "Beyond the Bat-
tlefield: The Labor of Military Service in Latin America and the Caribbean",
which treats some of the same issues in a regional context. But once more,
the papers at this conference largely concentrated on the non-military, or at
least non-martial, roles played by soldiers in the societies and economies of
the region and thus seemed to understand labour as something essentially
outside the core business of soldiering.
I became more and more aware of the degree to which a soldier's life itself
can be understood in terms of labour when I did empirical research in the
1990s on the everyday realities of Ottoman soldiers' lives during the First
World War. 6 The paths of Jan Lucassen and myself converged and in 1999 we
published "Conscription as Military Labour: The Historical Context". Over
the years, my specialist interest in the history of conscription in the Middle
East convinced me that there was a need to pursue more wide-ranging
4 Wise, "The Lost Labour Force", '"In Military Parlance, I Suppose We Were Mutineers'".
5 One article that does strike at the heart of the discussions in Fighting for a Living is the
contribution by Jennifer Mittelstadt, "The Army Is a Service, Not a Job", in the special feature
edited by Joshua B. Freeman and Geoffrey Field.
6 Ziircher, "Between Death and Desertion", "The Ottoman Conscription System in Theory
and Practice", "Ottoman Labour Battalions in World War I", "Hizmet Etmeyi Baska Bicjmlerle
Reddetmek".
INTRODUCTION
13
research into the circumstances which have produced starkly different
systems of recruiting and employing soldiers in different parts of the globe,
as well as to analyse the social and political implications that the different
systems have had in a number of states and societies. When I moved to
the IISH in 2008, this idea was received enthusiastically by the research
department of the institute and, as a consequence, the project Fighting for a
Living was started in 2009, of which this book is the result. It concentrated
on land armies in Europe, the Middle East, India, and China in the period
1500-2000 because the project was limited explicitly to state armies in the
context of advanced state formation. That means that important areas and
categories were not included - Latin America, Africa and Australasia - but
also non-state forces (guerrilla movements, slave or peasant rebel armies).
That we also excluded the navy may beseenasa serious omission, but this
is because we recognized that navies, which in many respects are very
different from land armies in their skill levels, in their traditions, and in
their recruitment, offer a hugely interesting field for comparative research
on military labour in their own right. We have decided to leave that topic
to a possible separate project. 7
Of course, it might be argued that "the state" in a sense is a modern
concept and that to use it to categorize pre-modern phenomena is anach-
ronistic. Doubtless, neither the sixteenth-century Landsknecht nor the
nineteenth-century Swiss mercenary 8 would see himself as fighting for
a "state". They were members of corporate bodies whose identities were
to a large extent formed in the field, and they were hired by kings. Early
twentieth-century Ottoman soldiers certainly saw themselves as defending
their ruler and their religion, but that does not have to prevent us, as twenty-
first-century historians, from using the state as an analytical category, to
distinguish the soldiers recruited by monarchs and republics (directly or
indirectly) from guerrilla forces and rebel movements.
7 Such a project could build on the work done by maritime and labour historians in the
mid-1990s, which has resulted in the volume of conference proceedings edited by Van Royen,
Bruijn, andLucassen, Those Emblems of Hell? Thisbookis not exclusively about navies, however.
It is primarily about commercial shipping.
8 The term "mercenary" over time has acquired very negative connotations, especially since
the advent of the nation-state, when defending the fatherland came to be denoted as both a
duty and a privilege of citizens. Throughout this book, however, we use it without expressing
any value judgement, simply to denote those soldiers who operated in a market in the sense that
they had a choice of employers and engaged themselves at least formally on the basis of free
will. This serves to distinguish them from those soldiers who were also paid for their services
(and sometimes generously), but who did not operate under market conditions and had only
one possible employer.
14
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
If we decide to regard the work of the military as labour, one legitimate
question to ask is, of course, whether military labour is in any fundamental
sense different from other forms of labour. One could argue that one aspect
of military work is unique in that it explicitly transcends humankind's
greatest taboo: killing members of the same species. Even if soldiers spend
far more time in barracks or on the march than in actual battles, the fact
that the ultimate purpose of an army is to fight and kill makes it different
- more so, certainly, than the fact that there is risk involved, as for most
people in most societies exposure to risk has been the normal condition, be
it from violence, starvation, childbirth, or contagious disease. But whatever
its exceptionality, ultimately an army is built on the factors of capital and
labour just like any other industry, and it is this that makes it possible to
analyse the activities of the soldier as just another form of work.
Fighting for a Living has yielded twenty hugely interesting case studies
covering four continents and five centuries and these are now presented in
this study. The following is an attempt, based on the twenty draft chapters
that the members of the research group have produced and the many
thought-provoking discussions we have had, to construct a taxonomy of
military labour relations in Europe and Asia over the previous five hundred
years, to discern underlying patterns and make some suggestions about
what kind of determinants influence the prevalence or demise of certain
types of labour relations within the military.
Huge variations
On a phenomenological level, even when we limit ourselves to land armies
in the service of the state, the variety of forms of military labour is almost
endless but, to make meaningful comparisons possible, a basic classification
has to be applied. The search for such a classification was high on the agenda
of the research group of Fighting for a Living.
One way of grouping the different phenomena is that employed by John
Lynn in his seminal work on the developments of European armies. 9 Lynn
distinguishes four basic "army styles": the "feudal army", the "aggregate con-
tract army", the "state commission army", and the "conscript army". Central
to his thesis is the notion that, around 1650, the aggregate contract army,
which Lynn describes as "a force cobbled together from a small number of
state troops, the hiring of mercenary bands, and the incorporation of private
9 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West".
INTRODUCTION
15
armies raised by major aristocrats and put at the ruler's service", 10 gave way
to a recognizably different style, that of the state commission army. The
state commission armies that came to dominate in Europe after 1650 were
both more national in composition and more uniform, as well as much
bigger than the mercenary armies had been. States took upon themselves
more of the responsibility for clothing, feeding, and equipping the troops,
something that, among other things, led to the invention of the uniform
itself. However, in his recent work, Lynn has recognized that in some coun-
tries, such as the Dutch United Provinces with their small population but
well-filled coffers, the mercenary remained very important after that date.
In fact, the eighteenth century was the heyday of the seigneurial system,
in which smaller German states hired out their regiments to richer, more
powerful states in exchange for "subsidies". As is well known, the British
fought their wars in North America partly with Hessian and Hanoverian
regiments acquired in exchange for subsidies.
Although the dividing line of 1650 has kept its validity, the exceptions
show that army styles in fact rarely occur in a pure form. Like Max Weber's
bureaucracy, they are ideal types. In reality, our research shows that armies
were composite bodies with different army styles coexisting at the same
time. Mercenaries continued to play a role in the state commission armies of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, even if they no longer dominated
and, as Thomas Hippler shows, the army of the ancien regime also included
conscripted soldiers long before the formal introduction of conscription
during the French Revolution.
Lynn's classification is both convincing and useful as an analytical
tool, but it has to be recognized that it is based on European history only.
Several "army styles" that have been extremely important in Asia and the
Middle East in the early modern period and even later therefore are not
included. The first to come to mind is that of the "slave army". For a thousand
years, from the early ninth century to the early nineteenth, mamluks or
ghulams, soldiers who were bought as slaves by rulers outside their realm
and regarded as their private possessions, were a prominent feature from
Algiers to India. Regions as far apart as the steppes of Central Asia and
Ethiopia exported soldier-slaves on a large scale. The janissaries of the Ot-
toman Empire clearly belonged to the same category, slave troops, although
they were levied within the Ottoman domains and not bought abroad. The
10 Noted military historian John Lynn unfortunately had to withdraw from the project at an
early stage, but he kindly supplied a written commentary that served as the basis for discussions
in the Fighting for a Living working party. This description is taken from p. 2 of his commentary.
16
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
second style is that of the tribal forces, which were no longer an important
feature of warfare in early modern Europe, but remained important to the
Ottoman, Mogul, and Chinese Empires until their demise.
Naturally, a classification of army styles pertains to forms of military
organization, and not to labour relations. The temptation is great to assume
that the different army styles coincided with different forms of labour
relation, but as the case studies in our project have shown, the two do not
necessarily coincide. While in what we may perhaps broadly call "feudal"
armies - that is to say, in armies raised by landlords from among their own
retinue and dependent peasantry - one type of labour tributary relation
seems to dominate (the one that we will call "tributary"), the studies show
us that not only can two or more army styles coexist, in a single army style
(for instance, a state commission army or a conscript army), different labour
relations can coexist as well. In other words: a single type of army may
contain very different types of labour relation. Following Lynn, Michael
Sikora describes how the Prussian canton system was a "hybrid military or-
ganization" with a standing army consisting partly of foreigners (designated
as mercenaries) and a militia within one structure. Virginia Aksan in her
chapter gives a particularly rich example. In 1708, the military population
of Damascus consisted of local janissaries or guards, imperial janissaries
sent from Istanbul, mercenaries paid by the governor (who themselves
seem to have been composed of Anatolian levends, Kurdish musketeers,
and North Africans), and the timariot (or sipahi) cavalry - a mixture of
forces that had been around since the early fifteenth century and "army
styles" that had developed in the seventeenth. The French army of the Third
Republic was on paper a conscript army, in which citizens exercised their
right and duty to defend their fatherland, but like all nineteenth-century
conscription systems, the French one enabled its more affluent citizens
to pay for replacements, an opportunity they availed themselves of on a
very large scale. As most of the people who were available as replacements
were soldiers who had served their turn but because of their long service
in the army had little chance of a job in civil society, the conscript army
in fact consisted to a considerable degree of veteran professionals. The
Italian case, studied by Marco Rovinello, reflects the same reality, but in
an extreme form: the state was quite happy that the extra income from
bourgeois "liberations" (exemptions) allowed it to recruit veterans to beef
up the army and, accordingly, no fewer than forty-six articles of the 1854
regulations detailed "how enlisted people can be exonerated from service".
In the Netherlands, too, we see the same phenomenon of volunteers re-
engaging as substitutes after the reintroduction of conscription in 1819-1828.
INTRODUCTION
17
The studies in this book are about soldiers, not about officers. Everywhere
and always, the officer corps was treated very differently from the rank and
file and had its own set of labour relations. States have never been able to
recruit or control armies on their own. They have always needed to rely
on status groups (nobility, landowners, educated middle classes) for this,
and mechanisms of negotiation rather than of coercion are typical of the
relationship between the state and these status groups. The same seems to
be true for cavalry forces, which only rarely seem to have been recruited
through coercion.
We are faced with different army styles that succeed each other but in
part also overlap, and we also note that within a single identifiable army
style a variety of labour relations is possible. The twenty cases studied in
the context of the project in total yield about a hundred different forms of
labour relation. As I shall discuss below, there are several reasons for this,
but one of them is that, in many places, smaller forces of "experts" coexisted
with the mass of the main army: from the European Landsknechte and
Albanian cavalry to the Ottoman and later Portuguese artillery experts
in the Mogul army and the French officers of Mehmed Ali Pasha's new
Egyptian army, armies have always felt the need to employ high-skilled
specialists for specific tasks. The seventeenth-century Swedish army of
Gustavus Adolphus II offers a very good example of the coexistence of
different army styles and labour relations within a single institution. In
many ways the most modern army of its day, it rested on Europe's oldest
conscription system, but at the same time the Swedish king was one of the
biggest employers of mercenaries in Europe with an army, only 12 per cent
of which consisted of native Swedes.
Once we have learned to look at the different forms of military labour in
terms of commonalities rather than differences, we then need to establish
a taxonomy in which all the different forms of military employment that
have occurred in the different areas over a period of five hundred years can
find a place. For this we can have recourse to the basic threefold division of
labour relations developed earlier in the IISH's Global Collaboratory on the
History of Labour Relations 1500-2000: reciprocal labour, tributary labour,
and commodifiedlabom. 11 Providing work within a household or community
11 Of course, one could argue that besides the three broad categories outlined (reciprocal,
tributary, and commodified), volunteerism should figure as a fourth variant. There are several
reasons why we prefer to avoid this. First of all, and except for individual cases, it is almost
impossible to get accurate information about people's motivations in joining the military.
Representatives of the state and commanding officers may grossly misrepresent people's
mindset. Even if the soldiers themselves are literate and write about it in ego-documents, there
18
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
(on the basis of shared assumptions about obligations) is subsumed under
reciprocal labour. Workers who are obliged by the polity (most often the
state) to provide work are categorized as tributary labour. Their labour is
owned by the polity. In the third category, commodified labour, labour
power is acquired by the employer (the army, the state) in the marketplace.
Our research group has tried to place the different phenomena described
in the case studies in the taxonomy and to use the result to help answer
the following questions:
1 How can we explain the predominance of certain types of labour rela-
tions, and combinations of labour relations, in certain circumstances?
and
2 How can we explain the replacement of one dominant system by
another?
It goes without saying that the taxonomy is a tool to make fruitful com-
parison possible and should not be forced onto historical phenomena as a
straitjacket.
The very empirical richness that makes military labour such an attractive
subject to a social historian means that it is as yet too early to give a defini-
tive answer, but in this synthesis I should like to present some preliminary
findings that have come out of the project. The aim is not to give a complete
overview of the cases and their relevance, but to illustrate the main findings
of the project with examples taken from the case studies in order to give a
sense of what is possible with this kind of comparative approach, both in
terms of testing the usefulness of the basic taxonomy (reciprocal/tributary/
commodified) and in terms of finding determinants for the dominance of
a particular system of army recruitment and employment, or the change
from one system to another.
is no telling how accurate this information is. It may be a rationalization or self-justification.
Tradition, economic need, or social pressure may force people to volunteer and in some cases
(as the US Army during the Vietnam War) volunteering may even be a stratagem to avoid being
drafted and so get a privileged position within the army. It is not the volunteer character of
the "all-volunteer force" of the United States introduced in 1973 that is relevant for us, but its
all-professional nature and the fact that it can be seen as a form of free and commodified labour.
INTRODUCTION
19
Reciprocal, tributary and commodified labour
To determine where a particular form of military labour should be placed
in this taxonomy, we can look at the following variables:
- Income (wages or fees, high or low, coin or kind, regular/irregular);
- Duration of service (short-term contracts to lifelong employment); and
- Legal constraints (freedom to enter or leave the system, to change
employers).
The reciprocal form of labour relations perhaps figures least in our stud-
ies. Nevertheless, we see references to the use of tribal forces by the Ming
emperors in China and by the Ottoman sultans. The states of Hindustan
often had recourse to Afghan tribal warriors. Whether the Eight Banners of
Ch'ing China, the original Manchu tribal forces, represented reciprocal or
tributary labour seems debatable. Perhaps one was succeeded by the other
as the Manchu tribal chiefs acquired their new status of Chinese emperor
and old tribal allegiances were given a place in the Chinese imperial order.
Local militias very often were also based on reciprocity: there was a gener-
ally recognized mutual obligation within closely knit communities to share
the burden of defence. But when state, or "national", armies were built by
incorporating these militias into centralized structures commanded by
professional officers, as we see in Ming China or ancien regime France, but
also during the American War of Independence, militias evolved into a kind
of primitive conscription system. The gradual transformation of militias
that were primarily a form of reciprocal labour bound up in local duties
to protect the community, into a form of permanent duty to the state, is
traced by Sikora to early seventeenth-century Germany. The problem is
that the term "militia" is really too all-embracing. Clearly for any analysis
the terminology would need to be refined to make a clear distinction
between militia systems in which the influence of local society dominates
and those governed by the interests of the state. Frank Tallett describes
how first France under Louis XIV and then many German states developed
the militia system to create a trained manpower pool that could be drafted
into the army as the need arose. In these systems, which culminated in
the Prussian canton system, clearly a tributary rather than a reciprocal
relationship dominates. The roots of modern conscription clearly lie in the
militia system of France, which already used a form of conscription with
the attendant mechanisms of a draft and exemptions. On the other hand
we can also argue that, at the lowest level of early conscription systems
like those of seventeenth-century Sweden or eighteenth-century Russia,
20
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
the fact that the local village community, which was charged with deliver-
ing recruits under the supervision of the landed nobility, spread out the
burden of conscription in much the same way as it shared out the use
of common lands or the obligation of agricultural labour means that a
degree of reciprocity - an equal sharing of burdens and benefits within
the community - was involved. As Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter notes,
at least until the codification of recruitment rules in 1831, the practices of
peasants and local landlords determined the recruitment process in Russia.
We can also note that followers of military leaders who themselves had
a contractual relationship with the court or the state were tied to these
leaders through bonds of kinship or patronage and that because of this their
labour relations with their commanders were of a reciprocal nature even if
this relationship was itself part of a larger system in which other types of
labour relation (the free commodified labour of the mercenary) dominated.
The Scottish mercenaries quite often seem to fall into this category, but,
as Herman Amersfoort notes, Swiss mercenaries in early modern Europe
often had kinship ties with their recruiters as well. As all of these examples
demonstrate, reciprocity should not be confused with equality.
The large majority of military labour relations and recruitment prac-
tices surveyed in our project fall into one of the other two categories of
the IISH Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations: tributary or
commodified. Tributary labour occurs when the official position of the
state is that serving in the military is an obligation that can be legally
imposed and that is essentially interchangeable with the categories of
tax and corvee - other obligations imposed by the state. This concept is
usually well understood by the populations as is evident from the name
given in France to conscription - the "blood tax". The precise form that
the tributary labour relationship takes can vary from legal enslavement
(as in the Ottoman devsirme) to levies for specific campaigns, hereditary
obligations (as in the case of the Ming where households were obliged to
provide one member of the household for military service instead of corvee
or tax obligations) and early and modern forms of conscription. In levies
and early forms of conscription the obligation is typically imposed on a
community (the "People's Stalwarts" of the Ming or the peasants of the
Russian mir) while in modern conscription systems it is essentially an
individual duty incumbent on the citizen. Tributary and reciprocal forms
intermingle in the case of tribes that have a tributary relationship with,
for instance, the Mogul, Ottoman or Ming Empire, but that mobilize their
own tribal warriors on the basis of reciprocity.
INTRODUCTION
21
The second quite common category is that of commodified labour. This
seems to be the category into which both the aggregate contract army
and the state commission army of Lynn's classification fall. Typical for
these categories is that there is a contractual relationship for a limited
time between the court or state on the one hand and the military on the
other. Both the modern volunteer army (like the all-volunteer force of the
United States studied by Beth Bailey) and the contractors operating in Iraq
or Afghanistan, on whom Yelda Kaya reports, fall into this category as well.
A complicating factor is that different types of labour relationships
sometimes figure on different levels of a single system. In analogy to food
chains or commodity chains, one could perhaps speak about "recruitment
chains". An early modern European state may contract a mercenary colonel,
who will then contract with officers, often from the nobility, who will
bring to the army peasants from their feudal estates, who have a tributary
relationship with their lord. The fact that early modern states, whether
European, Middle Eastern, or Indian, as a rule relied on the landlords or
notables to execute levies on a local level opened the door to all kinds of
combinations of reciprocal and tributary systems, with the local notables
and officials sometimes becoming military contractors. In the Ottoman
army of the nineteenth century and right up until the First World War, Kurd-
ish tribal chiefs were given officer rank and placed in the army hierarchy,
but it proved impossible to impose regular army discipline on the Kurdish
units commanded by these officers, because the rank and file recognized
only tribal allegiance, not the hierarchy of the army. Theirs was a reciprocal
mini-system within a tributary (because conscription-based) whole of the
Ottoman army, with free commodified labour (the officers) at the top. A
particularly complex case is that of the Soldatenhandel discussed by Tallett
and Lynn. The soldiers hired out by, for instance, the state of Hesse-Cassel
to the British crown, were hired and had no interest in the British cause,
and in that sense and on that level they were mercenaries; but, one level
down, they had in most cases been recruited by their own state through
a form of coercion, be it a cantonal militia system or impressment. If they
were "volunteers", it was often in the form of indentured labour to pay off
family debts. Robert Johnson gives the example of the native soldiers of the
East India Company Army, who enlisted as volunteers, but who at the same
time were offered to the army by the heads of their families, who expected
these family members to serve out of tradition (and undoubtedly to add to
the family income or at least save having to feed an extra mouth). This is
a case of a commodified labour relation on top of a tributary or possibly
even reciprocal one.
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ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
In order to create a basis for comparative analysis of all these forms of
military labour relations, we need to find a common language to describe
the phenomena, one that is not bound up exclusively in the historical
development of one of the regions studied. In other words: rather than
busy ourselves overmuch with the question of whether the timar system
of the Ottoman Empire or the mansabdari system in Mogul India is a form
of feudalism (which is, after all, a term from European social history), we
should recognize that for hundreds of years states have been in need of
a form of military service in which soldiers, mostly relatively expensive
mounted warriors, were remunerated with land or the usufruct of land in
exchange for exclusive service to one court or state.
Pay and labour relations
The question of pay does not in itself determine in which category (tributary
or commodified) the different forms of military labour should be placed,
although it can be an indicator: the porters recruited by the Ch'ing army
from native tribes were not paid when they carried foodstuffs for their
chieftain, because their work was considered corvee, but they were paid
when employed directly by the state, so the very same work was tributary in
one context and commodified in the other. It is true that defining military
service as a duty analogous to the payment of taxes allows the state to
escape the need to compete in the labour market and therefore to offer
competitive wages, but most troops in tributary systems were in fact paid.
The Chinese Empire, for example, did pay its garrison troops during the
Ming era, even if these troops were made up of members of hereditary
military households that were obliged to produce soldiers, and the Ot-
tomans paid their janissary troops handsomely, even if legally they were
the sultan's slaves and the members of the corps had originally been levied
as a form of tax-in-kind in Christian Balkan villages.
On the other hand, mercenaries and state-commissioned armies -
examples of commodified labour - were often paid badly. Mercenaries
could be compensated by giving them the right to pillage (about which
more later) but once armies grew in size and permanence (something that
seems to have happened in China five hundred years before it happened
in seventeenth-century Europe), states were forced to allow soldiers to pay
their way (and earn a living), either by doing non-military labour for the
state (road repair being a popular option all over the world) or by producing
goods for the market. Otherwise, these mass armies would simply have been
INTRODUCTION
23
unaffordable. Here the Russian example is very clear. The soldiers of the
Russian army were nominally full-time soldiers, but they were allowed to
do productive work and even benefit from their own workshops and farms
while they were garrisoned. The tributary labour of the soldiers thus became
partly commodified. Standing armies, such as state-commissioned armies
in early modern Europe, the Ottoman janissary garrisons, or the military
households of the Ming, could (and in fact had to) reduce their costs by
allowing soldiers to become part-time producers. The garrison troops of the
Ming military households spent most of their time in agricultural labour,
not on military duties and half of the grain they raised in the fields had to
be handed over to the local garrison to cover the expenses of the troops.
Janissaries very often became co-owners of shops in the bazaar in cities
such as Istanbul, Damascus, Aleppo, or Cairo and, as Gilles Veinstein notes,
this was not some form of "degeneration" of the corps in the seventeenth or
eighteenth century: it had always been part of the system. Problems arose
only when the janissaries became primarily involved in non-military trades.
If it is true that many soldiers in standing armies were part-time agricul-
turalists or artisans, the reverse is also true: peasants and artisans could
become part-time or short-term soldiers. Dirk Kolff in his description of the
north Indian labour market makes the point that we should primarily look
at soldiering as part of the survival strategy of families and village com-
munities. Peasants could turn into weavers or soldiers as the opportunity
arose, and making use of the full range of opportunities was a sensible living
strategy for families. For this reason, the Hindustani villagers equipped
themselves with firearms on a massive scale, much as they would acquire
or make looms or hoes. It is very likely that a similar logic holds true for the
communities that delivered levends to the Ottoman army and for villages
in south-western Germany that provided Landsknechte. Spreading the risk
is an essential strategy for peasant communities, and seasonal soldiering
could compensate for a bad harvest.
Forms of remuneration
Basically, the state has three options in the way it remunerates its soldiers:
through the apportioning or the usufruct of land; through cash payment or
payment in moveable goods; or through granting rights, notably the right
to pillage. The granting of land or usufruct was always a popular option for
cash-strapped states. It had clear advantages for societies with low levels of
monetization, and it seems to have been the preferred option for relatively
24
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
expensive cavalry forces and commanding officers in medieval Europe as
well as in India and the Middle East in the early modern period. Generally
the rank and file were paid in cash or kind, but both in Europe (Cossacks,
Croats on the Austrian military border) and in China (Banner troops) we
see the phenomenon of troops settled on the borders as colonists, who were
given land in the area they settled.
Both copper and silver played an important role in systems based on cash
payments. Where soldiers were paid on a weekly or monthly basis, copper
coin seems to have been used frequently, while silver was preferred when
larger sums were involved, as for signing bonuses or payments of arrears.
In the Chinese army, soldiers were paid in copper when in their garrisons,
but in silver when on campaign, as carrying large amounts of copper coin
would have been too burdensome.
Generally, cash payment became more widespread after the flow of silver
from the Spanish Americas started, but it was primarily an attractive option
for states with a high degree of centralization and huge powers of extraction
(the Chinese Empire being in a class of its own in this respect) or states with
highly developed credit and banking systems like the Italian city-states,
the Dutch Republic, or Britain. Spain and Japan were in an exceptional
position in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, because their direct
access to rich silver stocks gave them a unique ability to raise troops for
cash. For most early modern European states, however, but also for the
Ottoman Empire, raising the cash for the aggregate contract armies of the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries and for the expanding armies of
the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was, of course, notoriously
difficult. One way of overcoming the problem was by allowing soldiers to
raise their income by granting them the right to pillage. As both Lynn and
Tallett show, for the mercenaries in the armies of the Thirty Years War this
source of income was far more important than their nominal wage, and
Tallett clearly has a point when he says that this makes the soldier less a
wage-earner than a petty entrepreneur. While this kind of remuneration
seems to have lost its importance in Europe from the mid-seventeenth
century onwards as states grew stronger and increased their ability to raise
taxes (as Charles Tilly has famously argued), it continued in other areas. As
Mehmet Besikci shows, the Ottoman Empire in 1914 gave volunteer bands
the right to collect "donations" from the local population, acting as a kind
of de facto tax collector.
In addition to regular pay, there are many examples of bonus and incen-
tive systems in the form of rewards for valour in battle, for the number of
enemies killed, for signing up, or for extending one's service. Aksan quotes
INTRODUCTION
25
the memoirs of an Ottoman soldier of the early nineteenth century, who
confesses to cutting off the heads of unsuspecting Christian villagers with
the intention of handing them in as proof of the number of enemies he had
killed. When he then meets a company of janissaries, the first thing they do
is to rob him of his heads. The incentive, both for him and for the janissaries,
is not bloodthirstiness or fanaticism, but simple material gain - the heads
represent a source of extra income in the form of a bonus. Signing bonuses
were a double-edged sword for the recruiters, however. On the one hand,
the immediate attraction of an up-front payment in cash was hard to resist
for many poor peasants or casual labourers in the towns, so they were very
effective. On the other hand, the cash in hand gave recruits the means of
survival (albeit a for a limited period), and deserting immediately after the
receipt of the bonus seems to have been a common strategy for recruits the
world over. Signing bonuses were expensive for the state or its recruiters
and, as Sikora points out, imposing military service as a duty (in other words,
turning it into tributary labour), for instance, in the form of state-controlled
militias, saved a great deal of money.
Perhaps a distinction should be made between the right granted to
soldiers to live off the land and exact "contributions" from the population,
especially in enemy territory, which can be regarded as a form of regular
income, and the right to pillage, for instance after the taking of a town,
which, because of its unpredictable nature, can more properly be regarded
as a bonus or incentive.
Throughout the period studied there seem to have been huge differences
in remuneration between officers and troops, in both Europe and Asia,
but also between the well-trained professionals that were hired for their
expertise (and who on the whole were much smaller in number) and large
masses of peasant soldiers with only basic skills. Officers were not only
much better remunerated, either in land/usufruct or cash, but in many cases
(European and Indian mercenaries seem to be prime examples) officers
also functioned as recruiters and were regarded, as Amersfoort says, as
"owners" of their regiments. This allowed them to run their units as private
enterprises and turn military service into a very profitable business. As
Amersfoort shows, getting rid of these intermediaries, who controlled the
military labour market, was a strong argument in favour of the establish-
ment of cadre-militia or conscript armies in the nineteenth century.
The professional mercenaries of early modern Europe, the Household
Men of Ming China, and the Ottoman janissaries, with their strong cor-
porate identity and hierarchy based on skill and experience, can perhaps
best be compared to guild members and artisans. Landsknechte regarded
26
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
their units as independent corporations and as a rule even elected their
own officers without interference from any state. The soldiers of the mass
armies raised in eighteenth-century France or Prussia, the levends of the
Ottoman Empire, the garrison troops of the Ming, or the Green Standard
forces of the Ch'ing can be more usefully compared with unskilled labour.
The evidence seems to show that pay levels for this type of soldier were fairly
consistent with wages being paid at the lower end of the civilian labour
market, in both Europe and Asia. Where soldiers were recruited in the
labour market, the army generally seems to have been an employer of last
resort, as shown by the fact that recruitment generally was easier in times
of economic crisis, or in the seasons with little agricultural work, when it
was hard to find other jobs. The trump card of armies no doubt was the
fact that, apart from the basic wage, they offered a degree of security in the
form of board and lodging, however dismal it may have been.
When discussing the remuneration of soldiers it is important to include
the long-term effects as well as the immediate reward. Some of the most
valuable elements of remuneration may be in the shape of future rewards
such as upward social mobility, land, pensions or (in the modern state)
insurance, and educational opportunities for the soldiers themselves or
their children. This is true of civilian labour as well, of course, but armies
have often pioneered this kind of remuneration scheme. Especially in the
late twentieth century the cost of the non-pay elements in the total remu-
neration of soldiers became very considerable. As Kaya writes (citingjames
Jay Carafano), in the US Army it doubles the cost of employing a soldier.
The duration of military service
When we look at the practices in Europe and Asia in the past five hundred
years, the basic distinction we see in the term of service is that between
long-term and short-term. Long-term service seems to be associated with
reciprocal and tributary labour relations. The most extreme form is, of
course, military service that is in principle an engagement for the rest of
a person's life, as was the case with the Ottoman janissaries, mamluks,
sipahis and mansabdars, Ming household troops, and Ch'ing Eight Banner
forces. Obligations within (reciprocal) tribal systems are also generally of
a lifelong nature.
Still long-term, although not lifelong, was the obligation that came with
militia and canton systems and more generally, with the state commission
armies in Europe and, for instance, the Green Standard Army of the Ch'ing.
INTRODUCTION
27
In the modern all-volunteer army, military service is defined as a career
and therefore fundamentally seen as a long-term engagement but, as it
is contract-based, the labour relation cannot be defined as tributary and
long-term service cannot be enforced.
At the opposite side of the spectrum we find the short-term contracts
of mercenaries, tribal auxiliaries, and levies such as the Ottoman levends.
Sometimes these were hired for a single campaign season, but more gener-
ally the - often implicit rather than explicit - term of contract seems to
have been until the end of the present conflict or emergency.
One system of recruitment moved from long-term to short-term over
time: conscription. In the older (seventeenth- and eighteenth-century)
conscription systems, such as the Russian and the Swedish, service was for
an indefinite term, which in practice usually meant twenty-five to thirty
years. In the modern conscription systems introduced in the nineteenth
century the term of service was much more limited and in general was
lowered significantly over the course of the century. Hence, the mass
conscript armies of the century between 1870 and 1970, with their two- to
three-year service, formed a halfway house between the lifelong soldier
and the soldier engaged for one single campaign that is so characteristic of
earlier times. It has to be remembered, however, that all conscript armies
have been built around a core of long-term professionals.
Free or unfree? Legal constraints
The problem with determining whether soldiers in the different armies can
be classified as free or unfree labour is complex. Soldiers serving within
a system of reciprocal obligations must at all times count as unfree (as
reneging on the communal obligation usually carries a very high social
cost), but very few soldiers in history have been legally completely free
actors in the sense that they could terminate or change their employment
without being subject to prosecution under criminal law. In almost every
country, joining the army altered people's legal status. In most cases this
restricted their freedom, but in the case of Russia the opposite was true:
conscription turned serfs into free men (and their wives into free women),
albeit free men subject to military discipline. As in many other fields, the
prototypical Marxian free worker historically seems to have been a quite
exceptional phenomenon in the world of the military. In his essay "Who Are
the Workers?", Marcel van der Linden has argued that "there is an almost
endless variety of producers in capitalism, and the intermediate forms
28
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
between the different categories are fluid rather than sharply defined". 12
He gives examples of slaves working voluntarily for wages part of their
time, and he also points out that "free" wage-labourers have at times been
locked up by their employers, a practice that in countries such as China or
India is still a regular occurrence. Our research seems to confirm the truth
of this statement.
Members of aggregate contract armies undoubtedly come closest to the
status of free worker. In theory they were free to choose their employer,
which gave them some negotiating power, and their contracts were of
limited duration, although, as James Miller notes, the actual term of service
often seems to have been unrecorded. The premise seems to have been that
soldiers served as long as hostilities required their presence. But even the
mercenaries were subject to articles of war once they had signed up and
received their bonus. According to a decree of December 1789 quoted by
Hippler, the soldiers of the French revolutionary army would lose their civic
rights for the duration of their (voluntary) service and even the all-volunteer
force of the United States, which, according to Bailey, in the 1970s explicitly
sought to redefine military service from a citizen's obligation to the state
to just another form of labour, comparable to work in services or industry,
subjected its soldiers to a legal regime distinct from the civilian code. The
criminalization of breach of contract seems to be an enduring characteristic
of military employment that sets it apart from most civilian labour relations.
Appearances can be deceptive: the Ottoman janissaries were technically
possessions of their sultan, but had accumulated traditional rights, which
they guarded jealously, much like a guild. Many of the janissary mutinies
that occurred from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries
started as "industrial actions" or pay disputes, when they interpreted
government measures as unjustly transgressing on their acquired rights. 13
On the other hand, soldiers who signed up of their own accord, as free
men, for an eighteenth-century state commission army were faced with
draconian regulations and frequent physical abuse, which in armies such
as the Prussian could be quite as bad as what plantation slaves had to face.
When judging conditions of service, whether in terms of pay or in terms
of the opposition free/unfree, we should always take into account contem-
porary conditions in society at large. Conditions of service that may seem
unfair or even atrocious in our eyes may have looked very different to a
Scottish day labourer, a Russian serf, or a Hindustani peasant. The status
12 Van der Linden, "Who Are the Workers?"
13 See Stremmelaar, "Justice and Revenge in the Ottoman Rebellion of 1703".
INTRODUCTION
29
of free actor in the labour market, as enjoyed by a European mercenary
or a Rajput warrior, historically is the exception rather than the rule, and
that is true for the military profession just as much as for society at large.
Determinants: general considerations
Hopefully, the preceding paragraphs have shown that it is possible to
classify the different forms of military labour by looking at their shared
characteristics and to place them in a taxonomy based on a distinction
between reciprocal, tributary, and commodified labour. Taking into account
the variables of remuneration, term of service, and legal status, we can try
to gauge which factors influence the choice for a particular form of military
employment on the part of the state: in other words, which were the most
important determinants?
All forms of military recruitment and labour represent different solutions
to shared problems. To find the determinants, we first have to look at the
basic problems and aspirations of the people and the state. As a rule, people
like to be left alone. Outside the ruling elite, they are fully occupied by their
daily concerns to make a living, to preserve their health, to protect their
children, and, in the more dynamic societies, also to gain advancement
or amass wealth. They are prepared to defend their homes and families
and throughout recorded history they have also shown themselves ready
to defend the larger community of which they perceive themselves to be
a part: the village, the town, or the tribe. Indeed, in some societies (those
of border and highland Scotland, of Albania, and of the Central Asian
steppes, for instance), small-scale local armed conflict was the normal
state of things, and it is no coincidence that these societies produced highly
sought-after soldiers. Of course, history is also riddled with instances in
which people have united in much larger, more anonymous groups to fight
in a "cause": the crusades in medieval Europe, rebellions such as those of the
Celalis in the early seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire or the Tai Pings
in nineteenth-century China. Sometimes hundreds of thousands, even
millions, of people have taken part in these armed movements, but two
characteristics distinguish these movements from the kind of organized
violence we discuss in our project: they are generally short-lived (even the
longest lasting only about fifteen years, most being much shorter) and at
least at the start spontaneous. In our project we deal with military systems
established by states for the longer term.
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ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
States therefore have a problem: it is very difficult to get people to devote
themselves exclusively or predominantly, on a permanent basis, to fighting,
killing, and dying in the service of distant entities such as courts or abstract
notions such as the state or the nation. Yet this is exactly what princes and
states need. Faced with the need to raise soldiers, states have a basic choice
between two options. To put it in Gramscian terms they can either coerce
people into serving or convince them to do so through the establishment of
a hegemonic cultural code, in other words, to create a measure of consent.
Both coercion and consent have obvious advantages and disadvantages,
which are well known from the debates about slavery versus wage labour. 14
At first sight the hiring of professionals, in the form of both mercenaries and
standing armies, may seem the more expensive option, because it makes
high demands on the state's ability to pay and often forces the state to
compete with other employers in the labour market, but at least mercenaries
(but also levies) have the huge advantage that they can be contracted for a
single campaign season or emergency only and that they can be disbanded
thereafter. This seems to have been the practice in India and Europe as early
as the fourteenth century, but also in the Middle East from the seventeenth
century onwards. Coercion may seem cheap, but it is more expensive than
it appears at first sight, because of the need for forceful recruitment and
constant supervision after soldiers have been recruited. Like slaves, coerced
soldiers may also be less motivated or "productive" than those who have
joined the colours of their own free will. In the Ottoman army in the First
World War, conscripted Arab soldiers were sometimes marched to the front
in chains and this army had the highest proportion of deserters by far of all
armies engaged in the war.
On the other hand, coercion allows the state to escape the need to
compete in the labour market. It does not have to entice people to become
soldiers with signing bonuses nor does it have to pay wages in conformity
with the market. Ultimately, what is the decisive factor may not be cost
in itself, but value for money or, in other words, cost-effectiveness. It is
extremely difficult to introduce the concept of "productivity" into discus-
sions on military labour. After all, what is a soldier's productivity when he
is engaged in his core business of fighting and killing? Is it the measure of
destruction he manages to inflict on the enemy? Or is it the degree to which
his activities help to enlarge the tax base of the state through conquests,
or further the economic interests of the elites that control the state? In
economics, productivity is the total production divided by the necessary
14 Fenoaltea, "Slavery and Supervision in Comparative Perspective".
INTRODUCTION
31
workforce, so we not only have to take into account the end result of military
campaigns, but also the size of the armed force needed to achieve the result.
Although an interesting topic, this issue is too complicated to deal with in
the context of this synthesis or even the Fighting for a Living project. In this
context it is perhaps best to see cost-effectiveness as the lowest expenditure
that would still give a state good prospects of success on the battlefield.
Whatever the definition, it seems to be the case that courts and states his-
torically are looking for the army that is most effective on the battlefield at the
lowest possible cost (that even this lowest possible cost can still be crippling
to state and society alike is another matter). However, there can be a huge
difference between the immediate costs and the long-term financial burden:
both early seventeenth-century mercenaries and early twenty-first-century
contractors have been expensive in the short run, but they were and are easily
dismissed at the end of the conflict, while standing state commission armies
were a continuous drain on the treasury and the modern all-volunteer forces
bring with them huge long-term obligations to the soldiers and their families.
The choice made by different states at different times is influenced by
many more factors than economic or financial ones alone, however. If
maintaining a monopoly of violence, or, to put it more realistically, getting
as close as it can to a monopoly of violence, is a central function of the state,
the dilemma faced by states that create a powerful military they may not
be able to control, and that may threaten the established order, is a very
real one. This is just as true for the state that recruits highly specialized
military experts (like the mamluks of the Middle East or the Turks and
Afghans of Hindustan) as for the one that, through conscription, recruits
mass armies from a population that is at the same time denied access to
civil rights (as in the cases of Prussia and Russia). Apart from this kind of
political consideration, ideological considerations or cultural prejudices
may play a part. The Ottoman decision to exclude non-Muslim citizens
from the conscription system (a decision that cost them up to 40 per cent
of their manpower pool before 1878 and at least 20 per cent thereafter) is a
case in point, but so is the commitment to general conscription of the late
nineteenth-century French Republic and the Kingdom of Italy, which was
informed by notions of patriotism and nation-building. As Torn Leonhard
shows, the rejection of conscription in Great Britain was influenced both
by the Whig interpretation of history, which saw large standing armies as
instruments of tyranny and essentially un-British, and by an idealized view
of the army as representing traditional country values, with aristocratic
officers and a sturdy peasantry for soldiers. This shifted toward the end of
the nineteenth century with a changing image of the imperial military and
32
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
an intensified perception of continental models of the nation-in-arms - still
it needed the new realities of the First World War to introduce general
conscription in Britain.
Many states held strong opinions about which populations produced
good soldiers, and these ideas were not without foundation. As Miller
writes, one factor that made soldiering attractive for Scotsmen and made
Scotsmen attractive as soldiers was the long tradition in the country of
military training through the state-imposed tradition of regular weapons
training shows. In addition, the internecine small-scale warfare among the
Scottish nobles and clans formed a permanent training ground for future
soldiers. The same is true for the Albanians, who gained a reputation as
warriors both in early modern Europe and in the Middle East. The Albanian
Mehmed Ali Pasha of Egypt turned to conscripting the fellahs of the Nile
valley into his army only when he had no other options left, partly because
the docile peasant population of Egypt was regarded as completely devoid of
martial qualities. In the end, it turned out that with extreme coercion and
professional leadership these peasants could be made into a very effective
army, but as Khaled Fahmy shows, the population continued to see military
service as a kind of corvee and never developed a "military ethos". 15
The exemption and substitution systems that were introduced into all
countries parallel to the introduction of modern conscription were often
motivated by economic and ideological concerns. On the one hand, there
was the fear that conscripting the most economically productive males
(white-collar workers, people with education) would damage the economy,
as the French debates charted by Hippler show. In the Kingdom of the Neth-
erlands even wage-earners were exempted. On the other hand, the tendency
of regimes as far apart as the Dutch, the Russians, and the Ottomans to
exempt clerical students shows a concern with maintaining the ideological
bases of the social order. In Germany, Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891) feared
that the arming of the workers would constitute a permanent danger for
the new nation-state.
Universal patterns
When surveying the different case studies in our project, we are struck by
a number of characteristics that seem to be almost universal. One is, as
noted before, that we always see different types of army style, and different
15 Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, p. 99.
INTRODUCTION
33
forms of recruitment and labour relations, coexisting. One telling example
is that of the Delhi sultanate described by Kaushik Roy: its army consisted
of mercenaries, retainers of tributary chieftains, slave soldiers, and troops
maintained by holders of fiefs. Change from one army style to another
may be sudden, but is rarely absolute (the transition of the US Army from
conscription to an all-volunteer force in 1973, followed by similar transitions
in most NATO countries, seems to be the exception that confirms the rule).
While it is true that war nearly always brings with it some degree of change,
the introduction of new types of armed forces triggered by developments
in war very often takes place side by side with the continued existence of
older forces, which remain important even if they are obsolete and have lost
their credibility on the battlefield. The Ottomans kept their sipahi forces
in existence for at least two centuries after their military usefulness had
ended, and the Chinese Empire seems to have been equally conservative, as
is shown by the example of the Eight Banners of the Ch'ing, who, according
to Christine Moll-Murata and Ulrich Theobald, were militarily effective
until about 1680, but were kept in existence until 1912 and consumed about
a fifth of state revenues.
It is not hard to see why. Military corps were, after all, in an excellent posi-
tion to defend their vested interests, especially when garrisoned in major
cities or the capital. This is one reason why both the Ming and the Ottomans,
when they started hiring, or levying, mercenary troops, left their obsolete
formations (garrison troops and household troops in the case of the Ming,
sipahis and janissaries in that of the Ottomans) in place. Another, almost
inverse reason, also evident in both these cases, seems to be that a military
system, even when obsolete on the battlefield, can still be an important
element of control inside the country, not just in terms of law and order,
but also in ideological terms. Military elites often exemplified the existing
social order. The concept of military households was important to the Ming
as a vital element in its social order, just as the concept of a "military class"
(askeri) was to that of the Ottomans. Moll-Murata and Theobald, basing
themselves on the work of Mark Elliott, say that the militarily useless Eight
Banners were kept in being and paid by the state primarily because they
served "the display of the presence of the ruling elite in the capital and in
the provincial garrisons." The continued reliance of the French state on its
nobility for the recruiting and officering of its army even after that nobility
had lost its autonomy can be interpreted in the same sense.
Hereditary military labour has been judged very differently in different
states and societies. On the one extreme, we find the Ming Empire, which
originally imposed hereditary military service on a section of the popula-
34
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
tion. On the other, we find the Egyptian mamluks and Ottomans, who (at
least in theory) explicitly rejected the idea that sons should follow their
fathers in the military profession. In both cases the injunction was closely
linked to ideas about a stable social order, as hereditary service under the
Ming was only one part of a rigid division of society into hereditary profes-
sions, while in the Middle East exclusion of offspring from the military elite
was seen as a way to buttress a social order with a military elite (askeri)
that was theoretically completely separated from the mass of the ruled in
a way that is a perfect illustration of Ernest Gellner's famous description
of the "agro-literate polity".
Apart from the formal positions of states on hereditary service, for
or against, hereditary elements often played a role in communities that
traditionally provided mercenary soldiers, such as the Swiss, the Scots, the
Rajputs, the Gurkhas, or the "House Men" of the Ming. As Roy says for India,
"at times military service defined the identity of various communities".
Indeed, in early modern aggregate contract armies in Europe children
often accompanied their fathers (and mothers) on campaign, and being a
member of a family with military experience was considered an advantage.
Officers the world over mostly came from "military" families, although
Europe from medieval times to the twentieth century seems to have been
unique in the degree to which performing military service was considered
the noble occupation par excellence and a hallmark of noble status. The
Rajputs display the same characteristics, but in the Indian context their
case seems to have been rather exceptional.
What is very clear is that there is no teleological sequence. There is no
single process of armies progressing from one stage to another on some
developmental or modernization path. Because of the strong ideological
resistance in the Anglo-Saxon world to the idea of conscription, which was
closely identified with tyranny, this system, which became universal in
nineteenth-century Europe, was not introduced in Britain until a century
later and then only temporarily. A century later again, the reduction of
the armed forces of industrialized countries after the end of the Cold
War, in combination with a glut of arms and officers caused in part by
the end of the Warsaw Pact and in part by the end of apartheid in South
Africa, led to a resurgence of mercenary forces in the form of "contractors"
such as Blackwater as a major component in military campaigns of NATO
countries. Only decades before, when mercenaries played a role only in
post-colonial conflicts in Africa, the resurgence of a form of military labour
that had been in decline since the seventeenth century was not predicted
by anyone. Nevertheless, although there is no single path of development,
INTRODUCTION
35
in some periods certain systems clearly come to dominate while others
fade. As Lynn has noted, the mercenary did not disappear after 1650, but
in Europe the state commission army did become the norm. In the Middle
East the janissaries remained in existence until 1826, but irregular levies
had become the mainstay of the army by the eighteenth century. After 1815,
many restoration regimes, like those in the Netherlands or Italy, rejected
conscription as a revolutionary legacy, but in the decades thereafter the
system became dominant throughout Europe and the Middle East. What
were the factors determining these changes?
Now let us try to draw up a preliminary survey of those factors that act
as determinants where military employment is concerned.
Manpower and money
The availability of people and of money seem to be the most important
determinants. It is these two factors, the classic factors of labour and capital,
that create the parameters within which choices can be made. In these
choices political, ideological, and cultural considerations very often play
a significant role.
Let us first look at demographics, at manpower. Both the Chinese and
Indian experience is determined first and foremost by the availability of an
enormous, and seemingly unlimited, manpower pool. This gave the Mogul
Empire the chance to raise vast peasant armies and the Chinese Empire the
opportunity to raise armies that were of a different order of magnitude al-
together, when compared with European, South Asian, and Middle Eastern
examples. As Roy notes, at the end of the sixteenth century the population
of the Indian subcontinent was five times that of the Ottoman Empire,
ten times that of France, and thirty times that of England. The Chinese
manpower pool was clearly unique when looked at in a global comparative
perspective, as it was almost as large as that of the subcontinent in 1600
(and became much bigger later on), but much more of this population fell
under the central control of Beijing than was the case in India. As Bailey
shows, the transition from a conscript army to an all-volunteer force in the
United States was also very much the result of demographic development,
i.e. the baby boom, which "translated into a flood of young men eligible for
military service in the early 1960s". Scotland in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries had a very small population, but - relative to its size - an
abundance of surplus labour that was used to handling weapons. When
population growth stagnated in the eighteenth century, the recruitment
of Scots by the British Army became a problem. The manpower demands
of the army in the nineteenth century meant that the British had to start
36
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
recruiting in the urban centres of England, rather than in the countryside,
in spite of strong objections to the enlisting of urban riff-raff in the army.
For the Dutch, as Amersfoort shows, the small population in combination
with the drying up of foreign recruitment sources meant that a return to
conscription became inevitable after 1813. This drying up was due to the
expansion of the textile industry in Switzerland, which created attractive
alternatives to the traditional practice of hiring oneself out as a soldier.
Conversely, according to Zhao Zhongnan and Suzuki Tadashi (cited by
David M. Robinson in this volume), the manpower pool available to the
Ming army increased considerably when civilian farmers and military
household soldiers lost their land to increasingly powerful landlords in the
late sixteenth century, and this allowed the state to recruit on a large scale.
The second factor is money. Where labour markets were tight, states
essentially had only two ways to strengthen their armies: either through
more coercion (isolating groups of people from the labour market), which
also carries a cost, or through improving the position of the army in the
labour market by offering higher wages or other benefits. Coercion is much
in evidence, and here too we see recurrent patterns in a number of cases.
The "press", or similar systems, although not used as frequently and bru-
tally as in the case of the navy, was used by British, German, and Ottoman
authorities to get rid of social undesirables, which usually meant vagrants,
beggars, and more generally men without property, protection, or regular
work. Miller gives a telling example from 1630, when the Privy Council
of Scotland ordered "all beggars, vagabonds, and masterless men with no
lawful trade or means of livelihood" to enlist. In 1769 an Ottoman chronicler
noted that provincial governors recruited thieves and the homeless. In
Russia, communities and landlords used conscription to send off criminals,
troublemakers, drunkards and men deemed disobedient, unruly or simply
lazy. It is hardly surprising that armies time and again complained about the
quality of the personnel that was provided to them in this way. As Johnson
shows, this meant that well-trained native troops in the East India Company
Army, who were essentially volunteers, were considered much better than
the soldiers shipped out from the mother country.
Paying higher wages was a difficult option for the state. Financing the
troops was a continuous problem for most states, certainly in Europe and
the Middle East. This is true as much for the Habsburgs during the Thirty
Years War, who became dependent on a new breed of general contractors
that provided credit as well as an army, as it was for France in the late
seventeenth century or the Ottomans in the nineteenth. As Tallett notes,
states such as Prussia in the eighteenth century -those which maintained
INTRODUCTION
37
a disproportionally large army compared to population size and had under-
commercialized economies - needed a high degree of coercion to fill their
ranks. The Dutch Republic was on the opposite side of the spectrum. In
spite of its small population, which was averse to military service because
there were more profitable opportunities in the labour market, the Dutch
managed to raise sizeable aggregate contract armies because of their
financial strength and advanced banking system. The Chinese Empire,
when united under the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties, was at the opposite
side of the spectrum from Prussia in a different way. Its huge population in
combination with its ability to extract and import such enormous amounts
of silver and grain that it could provide for its armies in spite of their huge
size (between five and ten times that of the biggest European armies)
meant that it needed relatively little coercion. Roy draws attention to the
fact that, because of their huge manpower pool, neither India nor China
has ever had to introduce conscription. France, on the other hand, did.
After the restoration of 1814, conscription was abolished, as it was under
nearly all other restoration regimes as a detested revolutionary legacy,
but according to Hippler the pay offered to soldiers was so low that only
3,500 recruits came forward, and in 1818 a form of compulsory military
service was re-established. Conscription was seen as a cheap alternative
to the pre-revolutionary state commission army and, faced with the choice
between higher rewards to make the army more attractive as an employer
(persuasion) and the imposition of a tributary labour relation (coercion),
the French state opted for the latter.
Technology
As mentioned above, most states were constantly on the lookout for the best
army at the lowest cost to the treasury. But the army had to be effective
as well, which meant - and means - being technologically state-of-the-art
and reliable. Many of the most far-reaching changes in army recruitment
and employment were due to the desire to apply lessons learned in war
(primarily through defeat) and to emulate more successful competitors. As
Tallett has shown, this did not necessarily centre on new technologies (in
the sense of hardware) but more often on that of "social technologies", things
such as new forms of discipline, training, and institutional structures. This
seems to have been a decisive factor in the long Austro-Ottoman wars of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as well as in the success
of relatively small European colonial forces all over Asia. Ultimately, this
led to the adoption of Western-style discipline, with uniforms and drill, in
Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, and China. That the change was not necessarily
38
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
always in the direction of technological innovation is demonstrated by
the case of French revolutionary and Napoleonic armies, which replaced
the perfectionist drill of the eighteenth-century professional armies with
armies that were poorly trained and armed, but possessed overwhelming
manpower, speed, and high morale.
Changes in military technology, financial constraints, and the size of
the available labour pool undoubtedly were the most important factors
determining the choice for a specific form of recruitment and military
employment, with defeat in war acting as a catalyst, but other considera-
tions also played a role.
Politics
Political considerations were always important, as balancing the need for a
larger army with the need to maintain control over those who could provide
it or finance it (in the early modern states) or the need to manufacture or
maintain consent among the public (in modern states) has always been
high on the agenda of those in power. As Charles Tilly has argued, the
development of the modern state rested on its ability to offer protection
and the benefits, or rent, of that protection to the interest groups that made
the waging of war possible in the first place. 16 The same large modern army
that allowed a prince to be successful in fighting external wars and in
maintaining a monopoly of violence at home risked delivering him into the
hands of his creditors. High numbers of casualties or exorbitant expendi-
ture bring with them the risk of loss of political support. One of the major
reasons behind the widespread use of contractors by the US Army in Iraq
and Afghanistan has been the way it lessens the state's need to maintain
public support for its policies.
Ideological and cultural factors
Ideological and cultural factors determining who should fight or should be
excluded from the bearing of arms are also prominent. Conscription was
so bound up with the revolutionary period in the eyes of the restoration
regimes after 1815 that they preferred to fall back on state commission
professional armies and militias (as Amersfoort shows for the Dutch case),
while for the French Third Republic conscription as an expression of citizen-
ship and as the supposed legacy of the great revolution became an issue
of almost mythical proportions, as Hippler demonstrates. As noted before,
the refusal of the Ottomans to conscript non-Muslims severely limited
16 Tilly, "War Making and State Making as Organized Crime".
INTRODUCTION
39
their manpower base until 1909. Rovinello highlights a problem that was
faced by many states: while in itself the Italian population after the wars of
unification was more than ample to fulfil the manpower needs of the army,
the Piedmontese army command had severe doubts about "diluting" the
army with unreliable southerners. The same kind of doubts can be found
in Britain and France, not so much in terms of regional preferences but in
terms of a distrust of the urban proletariat, especially after the Paris Com-
mune of 1871. The reservations of Moltke in this respect have been noted
already. The Ottomans considered recruiting Christians and Jews bad for
morale, and the Russians rejected Central Asians as unsuitable until 1916.
A change in the dominant ideological paradigm sometimes exerted pow-
erful influence on recruitment practices, especially if it went hand in hand
with economic or demographic change. It may have been true that sources
for mercenary recruitment in Switzerland dried up primarily because of
the expansion of the textile industry, but it was also true that the spread of
enlightenment ideas about citizenship and the nation made soldiering for
money a disreputable trade. And, while the baby boom certainly decreased
the need for forced conscription in the United States in the 1970s and made
volunteerism possible, the rise of neo-liberal free-market economists and
politicians, who defined conscription as a "hidden tax" and who advocated
recruitment through the labour market, was a decisive factor in forcing
through the transition to a professional army.
Popular cooperation and resistance
The analysis thus far concentrates almost exclusively on the needs and
actions of the state, but we should not, of course, envisage the people who
were the objects of the state's intervention as being merely passive; they had
and have agency as well. As much as the state has a repertoire of options,
the people also have a repertoire of options open to them. Of course, they
can comply with the demands of the state, and this may simply be a form
of acquiescence on the part of communities faced with the power of the
state. On the other hand, compliance does not necessarily have to equal
acquiescence. People can see the army as an opportunity structure, offering
them chances of social advancement or of improving their living standards,
the chance to escape issues at home including getting women pregnant,
feuds, or crimes (as Johnson notes), or simply the possibility to travel and
see more of the world than their own village or valley. Rovinello shows that
this was a factor for Italian recruits in the nineteenth century. He also makes
the point that the draft acquired a symbolic meaning as a rite of passage to
adulthood. Being declared fit for the army was a "public certification of their
40
ERIK-JAN ZURCHER
masculinity" (and, one might add, of their health). In the industrialized world
of the twentieth century, young healthy males who had served their country
in the army were seen as attractive workers, as they had been declared
healthy (psychologically as well as physically) and had acquired discipline.
The fact that the state is in need of manpower to fill the ranks of its
army also enables people to instrumentalize military service for their own
ends. Communities that provided soldiers during levies often managed to
get compensation in the form of tax breaks. The Cossacks of the Russian
Empire are perhaps the most telling example of a community that managed
to exchange its loyalty and military prowess for concessions in the form of
autonomy, royal protection, and tax exemption. Another interesting form
of "exchange" is the one that Bes.ikc.i describes for the Ottoman Empire in
the First World War, when prisoners were released in large numbers if they
agreed to serve in labour battalions or in militia units.
There is evidence that, whether in Asia, the Middle East, or Europe, the
army was rarely a popular employer, at least where the rank and file were
concerned. It was often an employer of last resort. But even so, when work
was scarce, when harvests failed, or when industries went through a slump,
the army offered low but regular pay, food, and lodging - in other words a
security that was hard to find anywhere else.
On the other hand, people may also resist. But, to borrow from Charles
Tilly's conceptualization of social movements, 17 the repertoire of resistance
is also varied. First there is the tendency to avoid service altogether. Con-
scription systems, old and new, just like enslavement, have generally been
deeply unpopular. As Besikci says (citing Alan Forrest), "conscription can
also be depicted as a battleground between individual and local communi-
ties on the one hand and a distant impersonal state on the other". Privileged
sections of society have generally been able to make use of exemptions, and
both communities and local authorities seem to have done their best to
make sure that "undesirables", who were unproductive and might otherwise
create unrest in society, were taken into the army. This is a clear case of
instrumentalization of the state's recruitment drive on the part of social
actors. For populations that were faced with coercion on the part of the
state and its representatives, different forms of avoidance were open: going
into hiding or self-mutilation, which, according to Fahmy, was especially
widespread in nineteenth-century Egypt. 18 Once in the army, both desertion
and defection became options, even if sometimes highly dangerous ones.
17 Tilly, Social Movements 7768-2004.
18 Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men, pp. 260-263.
INTRODUCTION
41
The ultimate form of resistance was mutiny. "Industrial action" by its own
armed forces was of course the most serious crisis any ruling elite could
face. There seems to be some evidence that groups with a strong corporate
identity that could be regarded as "artisans of war" such as mercenaries
or janissaries, and troops raised from an urban background, seem to be
more prone to mutiny while, on the other hand, peasant armies seem to
be more prone to desertion. This may well be linked, as Sikora suggests, to
the fact that peasant armies, whether early modern state commissioned
armies or conscripted ones, were subjected to stronger coercion, control,
and discipline from the late seventeenth century onwards. It may also be
linked, I would suggest, to the different repertoires of resistance in towns
and in the countryside. To an urban population, industrial action and collec-
tive protest were familiar, even before the advent of industrialization, while
traditionally desertion - that is, fleeing the land and going into hiding - had
been a form of resistance to the demands of the state and the landowning
class in many rural societies.
A final word
What the project has shown us is that there is, to paraphrase van der Linden,
an almost endless variety of military workers in history, but also that we can
develop a taxonomy that allows us to group all these different forms from
many different countries and periods in categories on the basis of shared
characteristics and to do so in a meaningful way. When we combine the
classification thus achieved with a set of the most important determinants,
we can discern a number of patterns and reach tentative conclusions about
the circumstances that influence the choice for a certain type of recruit-
ment and a certain form of military employment. It is hoped that, alongside
similar research conducted at the IISH on industries that offer opportunities
for comparative research because of their global nature (textiles, docks,
prostitution), this study of military labour helps us to increase our under-
standing of labour relations worldwide. 19
19 In writing this synthesis I have profited from the comments and suggestions of the col-
leagues who participated in the project and of Jan Lucassen and Marcel van der Linden. My
special thanks go to Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter for kindly correcting the English of the original
text.
Military labor in China, c. 1500
David M. Robinson
Military labor markets have a long history in China. In fact, as Mark Lewis
has shown, policy debates over such issues as conscription, professional
standing armies, recruitment, and rewards predated the emergence of the
first imperial dynasty, the Qin, in 221 BC. 1 Given this background, modern
scholars' relative indifference to this cluster of issues is striking. This chap-
ter briefly reviews a few key works and debates related to military labor in
China c. 1500, most especially recruitment, then moves to consideration
of the Chinese example in the light of our common comparative axes and
taxonomies, and finally concludes with an effort to assess the causal factors
that accounted for the particular forms of military labor in China c. 1500.
A review of the field
In 1937, a pioneering scholar of the Ming period (1368-1644), Wu Han, wrote
the first major scholarly essay on the Ming military. His central concern was
the transition from what he described as a hereditary conscription military,
tightly controlled by the central government, to a system of hired soldiers
that ultimately gave greater power to leading generals than to the dynasty.
Wu described the transformation in the following terms:
From a garrison system that supported 3 million men at the cost of
not a single penny to the state to a mercenary system whose costs
fell entirely to the people and dynastic coffers; from garrison troops
with fixed levels of men to mercenaries with no fixed numbers; from
hereditary garrison troops to hired mercenaries: this sea change was
central to the rise and fall of the Ming period and was the largest shift
in modern history. 2
Before examining Wu Han's arguments, a thumbnail sketch of the Ming
military system is useful here. Borrowing a model developed by his prede-
cessors (the Mongol rulers of the Yuan dynasty, who had controlled China
1 Lewis, Sanctioned Violence in Early China, esp. ch. 2, "The Warring State", pp. 53-96.
2 Wu, "Mingdai de jun bing", p. 149.
44
DAVID M. ROBINSON
for much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries), the Ming founder, Zhu
Yuanzhang (1328-1398), had assigned hereditary obligations to the state to
individual households. 3 He divided the population into dozens of categories
- saltern households, mining households, and farming households, to name
just a few. 4 Military households were among the largest of such categories.
The Ming founder drew upon four major sources of troops for his dynastic
army: (a) men who had joined him when he had been a rebel leader during
the 1350s and early 1360s, (b) surrendering troops of rival warlords who
were integrated into his army, (c) criminals sentenced to military service,
and finally (d) forced conscripts, usually assessed as a given percentage of
the local population and used to fill out the ranks of the early Ming army. 5
The imperial army in general and military households in particular
were intended to be self-replicating and self-supporting. Each household
was responsible for providing one active service member to the state at all
times instead of the standard corvee and/or tax obligations rendered by
other subjects. Further they were to supply one, two, or three other males
whose labor and/or income was to support the active-service soldier. If
through death, accident, desertion, or dismissal, the active-service soldier
was no longer able to fulfill his responsibilities to the state, the family was
to supply a replacement, beginning with the nuclear family and extending
out to brothers, cousins, and beyond. 6 By the late fourteenth century, active-
service soldiers were stationed in more than three hundred garrisons spread
across the empire. The economic foundation of this hereditary garrison
system, like the foundation for the dynasty as a whole, was agriculture.
During the early decades of the Ming, the central government seized
huge swathes of territory that were turned over to garrisons, which were
responsible for opening and working agricultural lands. The primary duty
of approximately 70 per cent of the entire 1.2 million-man Ming army (but
rising briefly to a reputed 3 million in the early fifteenth century) was
raising grains, half of which were to be used by the farmer-soldiers and half
to be turned over to the local garrison to cover expenses for active-service
3 Taylor, "Yuan Origins of the Wei-so System".
4 Wang, "Some Salient Features of the Ming Labor Service System".
5 For a recent review, see Zhang, Mingdaiweisuo junhuyanjiu, pp. 20-50. Another essential
set of essays by a leading scholar of the social and institutional histories of the Ming garrisons
isYu, Weisuo,junhu,yujunyi.
6 Yu, Mingdaijunhu shixi zhidu.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
45
troops such as wages, equipment, medical costs, and clothing. 7 This was
Wu Han's self-sufficient and well-controlled garrison system. 8
For Wu and many later scholars, the shift to hired troops grew out of
official corruption and exploitation. 9 Underpaid and exploited by their
officers, by early in the fifteenth century garrison soldiers began to desert in
large numbers. Desertion undermined not only troop strength but also the
economic foundation of the system, as fewer and fewer men were available
to farm the garrison fields. Other soldiers offered gifts and monthly fees to
their superiors to avoid military duties. Efforts to track down deserters or
replace them with family members, who might live corvee-free and far away,
led to further opportunities for graft. Bribes were demanded to turn a blind
eye. Authorities responsible for filling the ranks were not above arbitrarily
registering unrelated or unqualified men to serve as replacements. From
the early decades of the dynasty, the central government responded with
orders for local authorities to compile more accurate registers, eliminate
fraud, and locate replacements from the families of soldiers who deserted. 10
In his famous "Placards to Instruct the People" issued in 1398, the Ming
founder repeatedly urged members of rural communities to turn in desert-
ing soldiers who sought to hide from imperial authority. 11 The results were
mixed at best.
Another complaint heard with increasing frequency over the fifteenth
century was the misuse of military personnel. Officers often treated
soldiers in their units as private labor gangs: they tilled officers' fields,
tended livestock, felled trees for lumber, gathered valuable roots such as
ginseng (along the northeastern border), conducted trade, and acted as
personal servants. In fact, the central government and its agents also used
the army for nonmilitary purposes but on a much grander scale. Garrison
soldiers provided the labor for many if not most large-scale construction
7 Wang, Mingdai de juntian; Ming, "Tuntian Farming of the Ming Dynasty".
8 Even during the early years of the dynasty, the military system had never been economically
self-sufficient but instead relied on regular infusions of "gifts" from the throne. See Huang,
"Military Expenditures in Sixteenth- Century Ming China".
9 For a fairly recent essay that ascribes manpower shortages - and the dynasty's ultimate
collapse - primarily to corruption among military officers and other administrators, see Liu,
"Mingdai weisuo quewu de yuanyin tanxi". Liu explicitly argues that the dangers of corruption
in the Ming have lessons for contemporary leaders in China. The same line of argumentation
of course was true for Wu Han writing in the 1930s; he was criticizing the practices of the
Guomintang (or Nationalist) government under Chiang Kai-shek.
10 Ma, "Mingdai de jiading". For an early example of desertion, see Ming Taizu shUu, ig3.8a-b.
11 Zhu, "The Placards of the People's Instructions".
46
DAVID M. ROBINSON
projects sponsored by the state, including palaces, city walls, dikes, border
fortifications, and even stupas for Tibetan monks resident in the capital. 12
The Ming was the first Chinese dynasty to institutionalize the use of
military personnel as transport workers on a permanent and wide-scale
basis. During the late fourteenth century, more than 80,000 soldiers were
used to transport grain to the distant but strategically vital northeast border
region of Liaodong. 13 Early in the fifteenth century, the principal dynastic
capital was relocated northward from Nanjing to Beijing. From this time
onward, an even greater number of men moved tax grain along the Grand
Canal to the capital in Beijing from agricultural centres in the southeast.
Figures from the first half of the fifteenth century suggest that each year
more than 100,000 men drawn from approximately 170 garrisons moved 3
million piculs of rice in 3,000 barges along the Grand Canal system from
Ningbo to the capital, a distance of approximately 2,300 km. 14 However, the
military labor pool that supported the arrangement on occasion proved too
tempting to the court. For instance, in 1448 nearly 20,000 grain-shipment
soldiers were deployed elsewhere to suppress a major insurrection, severely
disrupting the delivery of the grain to the capital. This in turn strained
dynastic logistics - the approximately 700,000 imperial troops stationed
in Beijing and its environs depended on the timely arrival of tax grain from
the productive southern provinces.
The disruption catalyzed reform in the late fifteenth century that re-
sulted, on paper at least, in an even more ambitious program to ship grain
along the Grand Canal: 121,500 soldiers moving grain on 11,775 transport
barges. The state permitted each grain-shipment soldier to carry items to
engage in a limited amount of customs-free trade. The state also built and
maintained a series of hostels and pharmacies along the Grand Canal for
transport soldiers. The result was a stable and expanded flow of grain. By
1500 or so, approximately 4 million piculs of grain arrived in the capital each
year. 15 Court officials congratulated themselves on their success, putting
in the mouths of a foreign envoy who traveled the Grand Canal to the
capital the following testimony: "The rudders of the Central State are more
numerous than the soldiers of this small barbarian kingdom. Would we
dare harbor traitorous aspirations?" 16
12 For the staggering costs of building of the Ming's northern fortifications, see Waldron, The
Great Wall of China, pp. 91-164.
13 Ming Taizu shilu, 193.58-0.
14 Lin, "Mingdai caojunzhi chutan", p. 183.
15 Ibid., pp. 183-187.
16 "Xu" in Cao chuan zhijuan 6, cited in Lin, "Mingdai caojunzhi chutan", p. 187.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
47
For Wu Han and others, however, the state's use of military personnel in
major infrastructure projects and for other purposes not only drove many
to desertion but also undermined military training. The young and the
strong were favored for such labor gangs. The old and infirm were most
available but least likely to benefit from regular military drill. According
to this line of analysis, by no later than the 1430s, the armies of the Ming
dynasty were in steep decline. A disastrous defeat in 1449 at the hands of
the Mongol leader Esen at Tumu Fort (north of the capital at Beijing) is often
offered as evidence for this collapse. 17
The debacle at Tumu represented a major crisis for the Ming dynasty. The
reigning emperor was taken captive; his half-brother was hurriedly put on
the throne in his place; the survival of the dynasty, especially the capital
in Beijing, seemed uncertain. To revitalize the military, the Ming court
enacted several reforms, two of which are most critical to our interests.
The first was the augmentation of garrison troops through local militias.
The second was the first large-scale effort to hire troops. In 1449 the central
government instructed local officials to conscript between one and four
men from each administrative community (which putatively contained
110 families). These men were to drill several weeks each fall and spring
during lulls in the farming calendar. These local militias (literally "people's
stalwarts") were intended for short-term defense of their localities. When
called up for service, each man was to be provided with "travel grain", i.e.,
a wage to feed him while on campaign.
The second effort to augment the garrison system during the fifteenth
century was the initial and limited use of hired troops. The Ming imperial
state employed a range of recruiting methods: it recruited men from within
the ranks of garrison soldiers, that is, men from hereditary military house-
holds who were already legally bound to fulfill their family's obligations
to the state; it recruited members of hereditary military households who
were not actively serving as soldiers but who were supposed to provide
income to support their active-service relative; and it recruited those with
no military obligations to the state. In each case, recruits generally received
signing bonuses and monthly salaries. Later, during the widespread coastal
piracy of the mid-sixteenth century, many generals actively recruited hired
troops, offering competitive wages and intensive training in weapons and
group combat.
Hired troops were especially numerous along the northern border. Al-
ready by 1500 or so, nearly 20,000 hired troops augmented dynastic defense
17 Mote, "The T'u-mu Incident of 1449".
48
DAVID M. ROBINSON
in the single northwestern region of Yansui. 18 By 1550, officials were recruit-
ing on a large scale. In the wake of destructive raiding in the capital region
by the Mongol leader Altan in 1550, recruiting in several northern provinces
yielded as many as 40,000 men in the single year of 1550. Wu Han argued
that, by this point, hired troops had become the principal fighting forces
of the Ming military - not in terms of numbers but in terms of efficacy.
Garrison troops were not abolished but neither did they contribute greatly
to the defense of the dynasty. 19 As noted above, however, the state put them
to use in a variety of ways.
For Wu Han and others, corruption again eroded whatever military
advantages the hired troops offered. Part of the problem was that men
signed up, received their bonuses, and fled as soon as possible. Officials at
the time claimed that some men did this on a serial basis. At the same time,
hired troops expected to be paid on time and did not hesitate to riot when
the state failed to fulfill its obligations. As the dynasty's fiscal conditions
worsened in the early seventeenth century, wages were frequently in ar-
rears. Wu Han estimated that, between 1610 and 1627, wages to hired troops
were in arrears by nearly 10 million taels of silver (although it is not clear if
they were being paid in grain, silver, or a mix of the two). 20 To put this figure
in perspective, the average annual income of the central government was
somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 million taels of silver.
Overall, the system of hiring troops contributed to higher costs for
military defense, especially along the northern border. In the mid-fifteenth
century, the central government began to provide "annual subsidies" to
garrisons to support the growing expenses of the northern border. By the
early sixteenth century, such subsidies reached 430,000 taels and continued
to rise steadily until the end of the dynasty. To cover the higher costs, court
and local government levied surtaxes, sometimes years or even decades in
advance, which according to Wu Han and others, in turn increased land
flight, social discontent, and support for the rebels who eventually toppled
the dynasty. During the last reign of the dynasty (1628-1644), these surtaxes
amounted to nearly 30 million taels of silver. 21
Finally, on the political and social fronts, a common perception at the
time and in much modern scholarship is that, by the early seventeenth
century, hired soldiers felt greater loyalty to their individual commanders
18 Li, "Mingdai mubingzhi jianlun", p. 64.
19 Wu, "Mingdai de jun bing", p. 188.
20 Ibid., p. 197.
21 Li, "Mingdai mubingzhi jianlun", p. 68.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
49
than they did to the court or central government. In a similar vein, the
most powerful generals, who considered their troops as a source of personal
power, were loath to waste them in combat with the court's enemies. Wu
Han argued that during the dynasty's last decades, these generals were
unwilling to fully engage with rebel forces, which led directly to the fall
of the Ming. 22
Other, less well-known scholars have characterized the growth in hired
soldiers in different ways. In 1940, the Japanese scholar Suzuki Tadashi
examined the emergence and significance of "people's stalwarts" and hired
soldiers during the Ming. 23 Like Wu, Suzuki contextualized the appearance
of the people's stalwarts as a response to the decline of the garrison system,
a decline thrown into clear relief with the 1449 Tumu debacle. Suzuki,
however, pointed to the great regional variation in the size and function
of people's stalwarts. He also viewed the people's stalwarts as a facet of
longstanding traditions of local self-governance, a characterization fully
congruent with Japanese Sinology of the first half of the twentieth century. 24
Thus, where Wu Han had written chiefly from the perspective of the central
government's efforts to revive the dynasty's military, Suzuki more fully
acknowledged the role of local government and local elites.
Suzuki's understanding of mercenaries, too, differed from that of Wu
Han. Although both argued that the widespread use of hired soldiers dated
from the piracy crises of the mid-sixteenth century, Suzuki held that hired
soldiers, particularly jia bing and jia ding, which might be translated as
"house soldiers" and "housemen", respectively, not only bolstered impe-
rial military strength but also enjoyed considerable appeal among the
general populace. He offered numerous examples of where contemporary
observers portrayed carefully selected housemen as the key to success in
battle. Enjoying preferential economic treatment and holding some level
of personal loyalty to an individual commander, housemen were thought
most effective as shock troops or as vanguard forces. Whereas duty as a
people's stalwart was an onerous obligation, to be evaded if at all possible,
service as a houseman was an opportunity to earn cash and a means of
escape from a village economy that had suffered considerable damage as
22 Wu, "Mingdai de jun bing", p. 190. More recently, Kenneth Swope has similarly observed,
"the military families in Liaodong came to form a martial caste of sorts, largely independent
from central government control" (Swope, "A Few Good Men", pp. 40-41). Swope, however, offers
a far more positive treatment of the contribution of the leading military families of Liaodong
to dynastic defenses.
23 Suzuki, "Mingdai kahei ko".
24 Ibid., pp. 7-10, 24.
50
DAVID M. ROBINSON
a result of piracy and efforts to suppress it. Thus, large numbers of young
men were willing to fight for pay. 25 Although Suzuki too acknowledged that
their growing ranks imposed a serious fiscal strain on the dynasty in the
long term, he argued that hired soldiers were militarily effective.
Finally, Suzuki disagreed with Wu about the challenge that late Ming
commanders posed to the central government. He acknowledged that
border generals did have the potential to become "minor warlords", but he
maintained that fighting with the Manchus prevented them from develop-
ing into a serious threat to Beijing. If the Qing had failed and these Ming
border commanders had continued to grow in power, however, they would
have emerged as warlords and brought "a revolution" similar to those that
had ended many previous dynasties, Suzuki speculated. 26
In 1952, Suzuki published an additional study that focused more squarely
on the socioeconomic conditions that gave rise to the "housemen". 27 Suzuki
saw the housemen as part of a widespread desire for social advancement
that predated the sixteenth century. Its background was the monetization
of the economy, including the payment of some taxes in silver, improved
standards of living, and changed attitudes toward the acquisition of
wealth. 28 Self-castration in the hope of securing employment in the imperial
palace and "placing oneself in the care of the powerful" (tou chong) were
simply different manifestations of this same desire to advance, he wrote. He
characterized housemen as sharing certain similarities with the long-term
tenants of landlords in that they were sometimes cast as sharing fictive kin
ties with their patrons. Suzuki described the housemen as simultaneously
"trusted intimates, claws and teeth, and hawks and hounds". He empha-
sized, however, that the sources for military housemen were by no means
restricted to household servants.
Suzuki stressed not only the push/pull factor of the new opportunities. He
also maintained that the supply of potential housemen had its roots in the
intersection of land tenure patterns and strong state influence prevalent in
North China, especially in the borderlands. During the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries, military commanders, palace eunuchs, and imperial
affines used their influence to encroach upon relatively plentiful farmlands
that enjoyed tax-free status (whether because they were garrison fields,
imperial horse pasturages, or acreage opened up under special government
25 Ibid., pp. 17-22, 25.
26 Ibid., pp. 23-24.
27 Suzuki, "Mindai katei ko".
28 Ibid., p. 27.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
51
incentives). As a result, the tax burden for the village or county as a whole
fell heavily on those who remained in the rolls. In response, many placed
themselves under the protection of powerful patrons. Farming households
provided the labor to work the fields and tend livestock; they also paid rent
to their patrons. The patrons in turn used their political connections to
shield them from tax and labor obligations to the state and, perhaps even
more importantly, from extra-legal levies that local officials imposed with
great frequency. 29 Later scholars, such as Ray Huang and Wang Yuquan,
would debate whether this arrangement represented a form of political
and economic exploitation by elites that reduced hapless peasants to the
status of serfs or an economically beneficial accord that allowed farmers to
keep more of the harvest for themselves and avoid arbitrary exactions from
local officials. 30 In any case, for Suzuki the basic equation was clear - the
more land that military commanders controlled, the greater their ability to
support housemen, which in turn increased their ability to extract rewards,
honors, and special privileges from the court.
Although it is common to date the widespread use of housemen to the
mid-sixteenth century, Suzuki pointed out that, by no later than the mid-
fifteenth century, some military commanders maintained housemen on
whose behalf they tried to secure rewards from the throne for battlefield
exploits. 31 By the mid-sixteenth century, the central government was issuing
orders for commanders to recruit housemen (again along the northern
border). 32 During the late sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, house-
men grew even more prominent in contemporary consciousness.
Many writers at the time felt that housemen demonstrated superior
valor on the battlefield. Border commanders were often careful to cultivate
personal ties with their housemen, "sharing equally their joys and hard-
ships". Some housemen adopted the surname of their commander. In other
cases, the housemen were bound through adoption or marriage ties to
their commanders. 33 Thus, it was felt, housemen soldiers were uniquely
29 Ibid., pp. 27-32.
30 Huang, Taxation and Government Finance in Sixteenth-Century China, pp. 107, 325-326;
Wang, "Mingdai xungui dizhu de dianhu". For a summary of the question and references to
related Chinese and Japanese scholarship, see Robinson, Bandits, Eunuchs, and the Son of Heaven,
PP- 36-37-
31 Ma, "Mingdai de jiading", pp. 214-218.
32 Ibid., pp. 222-223.
33 These familial ties are especially stressed by Zhao ("Lun Mingdai jundui zhong jiading de
tedian yu diwei", p. 146), who argues that the prevalence of adoption within the ranks of the
military surpassed that of any earlier period in Chinese history.
52
DAVID M. ROBINSON
cohesive as units and willing to endure great suffering on behalf of their
commanders. Commanders used units of housemen that might number
in the hundreds to anchor much larger and less committed forces. Such
bands of housemen sometimes appear in contemporary records as "death
soldiers" (sishi) or "dare-to-die soldiers" (gansishi) because of their reputed
willingness to sacrifice their lives on behalf of their commander. Despite
these strong ties of personal loyalty, as noted above, Suzuki maintained
that both commanders and housemen remained under state control and
did not pose a serious threat to the dynasty. 34
For a variety of reasons, research on housemen all but stopped until the
mid-1980s when scholars revisited the topic, often using new materials and
offering new perspectives. In 1984, the Chinese scholar Xiao Xu examined
housemen with particular attention to their development in Liaodong
(sometimes referred to as southern Manchuria), a strategic region that
bordered Korea, Jurchen lands (i.e., whose inhabitants would become the
Manchus), and the eastern edge of Mongolia. 35 Like Wu Han and most
Chinese scholars, Xiao attributed the rise of housemen to the collapse of
the garrison system and dated it to early in the fifteenth century, when
a portion of housemen was recruited from among the ranks of garrison
soldiers - a practice that was not officially recognized until late in the
century. Xiao argued, however, that the primary source of housemen was
hired soldiers, that is, men not registered in hereditary military households
who voluntarily undertook military service for a limited term in exchange
for money.
Perhaps Xiao's greatest contribution was his attention to shifting patterns
of funding for housemen. Early housemen were privately recruited and
privately funded by commanders. One early source of funding was the
income derived from lands seized by military commanders, as Suzuki had
noted. Some commanders squeezed funds allocated for garrison troops
under their commander to support their housemen. Others resorted to
criminal activities. Late Ming commanders such as the famed Li Chengliang
supported themselves through war booty, horse rustling in the borderlands,
and coercive manipulation of prices in border markets. 36
As the number of housemen grew and their importance to dynastic
defenses became clearer, the central government took a more prominent
role in financing their upkeep. Xiao observed that, during the mid-sixteenth
34 Suzuki, "Mindai katei ko", pp. 36-39.
35 Xiao, "Mingdai jiangshuai jiading de xingshuai ji qi yingxiang".
36 Ibid., pp. 110-111; Ma, "Mingdai de jiading", pp. 234-235.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
53
century, the central government gradually made explicit its commitment
to supplying funds for food, arms, rewards, and mounts for the housemen.
The process accelerated during the last quarter of the century until the
costs for housemen were being figured into the annual subsidies supplied
by the central government to cover border defenses. 37
Although scholarly literature generally casts any deviation from the
founding Ming emperor's policies as decline or collapse, a far better ap-
proach is to understand such changes as flexible responses to evolving
challenges. As one of the largest and most important imperial institutions
in Ming China, the military was sensitive to developments in many quarters,
from demographic trends (including not only population size but also migra-
tion and family structure), economic transformation (including the growing
size of regional markets and the spreading use of silver), shifting labor
supplies, bureaucratic imperatives (such as commuting corvee labor and
tax obligations into silver payments), and logistics needs (such as supplying
large numbers of men far from economic centres for extended periods of
time).
As already noted, such annual subsidies posed an increasingly heavy
burden on the finances of the central government. By 1590, efforts were
afoot to cut costs by thinning the ranks of housemen, either by removing
their weakest members or imposing strict caps on the number of housemen
allowed for commanders of different ranks - ranging from ten to sixty.
The most important commanders in Liaodong, including members of the
Li family, however, ignored the new measures. The court did not push the
issue for fear of alienating the generals in a time of dynastic crisis, and the
restrictions became an empty writ. 38
Xiao also offered several interesting observations on the changing nature
of the patronage system surrounding the housemen. Xiao argued that state
funding for the housemen often undermined the strong personal tie estab-
lished between housemen and patrons when recruiting and support had
been private. In some cases, personal bonds suffered from the very success of
housemen. Xiao offered the examples of the housemen of Li Chengliang (all
"surrendered barbarians"), who were rewarded for their battlefield exploits
with high positions and independent commands, which in time, weakened
37 Xiao, "Mingdai jiangshuai jiading de xingshuai ji qi yingxiang", pp. 111-112; Ma, "Mingdai de
jiading", pp. 235-237; Zhao, "Lun Mingdai jundui zhong jiading de tidianyu diwei", p. 147.
38 Xiao, "Mingdai jiangshuai jiading de xingshuai ji qi yingxiang", pp. 113-114; Zhao, "Lun
Mingdai junshi jiading zhidu xingcheng de shehui jingji tiaojian jiqi fazhan", pp. 88-89.
54
DAVID M. ROBINSON
their ties to their patron. 39 He also noted the distinction between "in-garrison"
and "accompanying" housemen. The former were recruited to serve for a
designed term in a particular garrison, regardless of the comings or goings of
individual commanders. The latter, in contrast, followed their patron, even
into retirement when they would continue to serve and be supported by their
commander despite his no longer holding a command. 40 Housemen who
followed their patron in retirement might become indistinguishable from the
servants or long-term tenants of local elites. In other cases, they comprised a
latent pool of manpower that local and central officials attempted to mobilize
in times of crisis. 41 For the most part, Zhao Zhongnan (see below) highlighted
the durability of the personal ties between housemen and their patrons in
contrast to Xiao who emphasized their provisional nature. 42
Critics during the Ming period objected that the growth in the numbers
of housemen ultimately did not serve dynastic interests. Drawing able men
from the garrison troops only hastened the garrison system's collapse. The
housemen's military successes brought their commanders dangerous power
and ambition. The privileges housemen enjoyed eroded morale within the
ranks of ordinary soldiers. Qi Jiguang (1528-1588), a prominent general who
had made skilled use of housemen and mercenaries, wrote:
Garrison soldiers' horses are given to housemen to ride; garrison
soldiers themselves are given to housemen as servants; garrison
soldiers' grain is given to housemen for their support. In this way, we
secure the hearts of 200 or 300 men but completely lose the hearts of
3,000 garrison soldiers under our command. 43
Other officials of the late sixteenth century characterized the housemen
as essentially parasitic, siphoning off food, labor, horses, and money from
garrison and civilian populations. One popular jingle of the time held, "If
you meet up with the Mongols, you'll still have your life. If you meet up
with the housemen, you'll have nothing left." Xiao thus concluded, "The
housemen system not only held within itself the dependency and abuses
inherent in the garrison system, which was a tool that exploited the classes
and oppressed the people", it added entirely new abuses. Among these he
39 Xiao, "Mingdai jiangshuai jiading de xingshuai ji qi yingxiang", pp. 114-116.
40 Ibid., p. 115. See also Ma, "Mingdai de jingding", pp. 229-231.
41 Zhao, "Lun Mingdai jundui zhong jiading de tidian yu diwei", p. 147.
42 Ibid., pp. 147-148.
43 Qijiguang, "Deng tan kou shou", in Qi Jiguang, lian bing shijijuan 4, cited in Xiao, "Mingdai
jiangshuai jiading", p. 117.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
55
included a shameless pursuit of self-interest over loyalty to commander
or dynasty and a sharp decline in the quality of housemen by the early
seventeenth century as men signed on for wages and commanders padded
the rolls in order to extract more resources from the state.
The last major essay on Ming housemen appeared nearly two decades
ago. In 1991, Zhao Zhongnan examined the socioeconomic conditions that
undergirded the emergence of the housemen. Building on the much earlier
work of Suzuki Tadashi and Wang Yuquan, Zhao Zhongnan emphasized the
centrality of shifting patterns in land tenure. The concentration of lands in
the hands of powerful landlords during the fifteenth and especially sixteenth
century is taken as granted by many Chinese and Japanese scholars. Zhao,
like Suzuki, believed that military commanders used their influence to
privatize garrison lands on a large scale, creating a revenue stream sufficient
to support housemen and withdrawing the lands from tax registers. At the
same time, garrison soldiers and civilian farmers lost their lands in large
numbers, producing a pool of men in need of employment and protection.
The result, maintained Zhao, was multiple layers of dependence that bound
the housemen to their commanders/patrons. 44 Again following Suzuki, Zhao
noted that the shift to mercenaries in general and housemen in particular
depended on the partial monetization of tax and labor obligations to the
state. 45 Finally, perhaps Zhao's most important contribution was the explicit
discussion of regional variation or specificity in the growth of housemen.
In this, he drew on the work of previous scholars interested in Liaodong. 46
In addition to garrison regulars drawn from Chinese households and
the use of hired soldiers, the Ming state drew soldiers from non-Chinese
sources in the wider eastern Eurasian military labor market. 47 Through a
variety of institutional mechanisms and personal connections, the Ming
state actively recruited Mongols, Jurchens, Tibetans, Yao, Zhuang, and
others into its military. The Ming valued such men for their specialized
skills in riding, mounted archery, and mountaineering, their temperament
(fierceness and indifference to cold, heat, and hunger) as "martial races",
and the fear they inspired among others. 48
44 Zhao, "Lun Mingdai junshi jiading zhidu", pp. 86-88.
45 Ibid., p. 88.
46 Ibid., pp. 88-89.
47 For preliminary discussion of Ming efforts to integrate non-Chinese personnel into the
garrison system, see So, "Eijo to eijogun - gunshi no senju hoho o chushin ni".
48 A small number of Japanese laborers and warriors who fled the harsh conditions of Hidey-
oshi's campaigns in Korea in the 1590s were also impressed into Ming military service (Swope,
A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail, p. 215).
56
DAVID M. ROBINSON
For the most part, such non-Chinese in the employ of the Ming state were
settled on the northern frontier. Their leaders generally received military
titles within the imperial Ming government commensurate with their previ-
ous local status. On one end of the spectrum, those settled within Ming
borders received lands, salaries, and periodic gifts from the throne. They
were also expected to fight in imperial campaigns, usually against relatively
nearby foes. They could expect promotions and further rewards for valor
and success on the battlefield. Although recognized as distinct from regular
garrison troops, these men and their families were subject to supervision by
Ming military authorities (both local and central). Thus, while Mongol men
might fight as a Mongol unit under a Mongol commander perhaps against
other Mongols (but equally likely against Chinese rebels or aboriginal
revolts), overall command remained in the hands of Chinese generals.
Chinese bureaucrats vetted battlefield exploits, processed paperwork for
promotions or permission to relocate, maintained household registration
in military garrisons, and adjudicated criminal and civil legal matters. 49
At the other end of the spectrum, Ming control was largely nominal. The
Ming state recognized certain Jurchen leaders, granted them nominal titles
in the Ming military, designated their polities as garrisons, and permitted
them access to the Chinese economy through horse markets on the border
and gift exchanges (and opportunities for private trade) during "tribute"
missions to the capital in Beijing. Through appeals to their sense of obliga-
tion, gratitude, and self-interest, the Ming state attempted to influence
the behavior of Jurchen groups. Such efforts ranged from trying to ensure
the safe passage of Korean envoys through Jurchen lands to allying with
certain Jurchen leaders against others to prevent unification in Manchuria.
During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, many of the
leading commanders in Liaodong maintained as many as several hundred
Mongol and Jurchen warriors as housemen. Contemporary writings stressed
their ferocity in battle, their skill in scouting, and their importance to their
commanders' success. 50 Mongol and Jurchen leaders, however, also recruited
Ming personnel, including military men; the rise of the Manchus (who
would eventually conquer the Ming and establish the Qing dynasty, which
49 Henry Serruys wrote the foundational work on the Ming Mongols. For more recent work (and
full citation to Serruys), see Robinson, "Images of Subject Mongols under the Ming Dynasty",
"Politics, Force, and Ethnicity".
50 Xiao, "Mingdai jiangshuai jiading", pp. 108-109; Zhao, "Lun Mingdai jundui zhong jiading
de tidian yu diwei", pp. 144-145. Like Wu Han, Ma Chujian noted that the practice of recruiting
Mongols and Jurchen as mercenaries dated back to the early fifteenth century: "Mingdai de
jiading", pp. 223-225. For the Jurchens, see Rossabi, The Jurchens in the Yuan and Ming.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
57
is discussed in the chapter by Christine Moll-Murata and Ulrich Theobald)
is inseparable from this phenomenon. 51 Thus, at least on the northern
border, the Ming state (and individual commanders) had to compete on
an international military labor market with other prospective employers.
Somewhere in the middle were communities of non-Chinese that were
loosely integrated into the Ming polity and that were expected to contribute
military forces only upon request. On the southwestern and northwestern
peripheries, the Ming state recognized local leaders from families that had
often held power for centuries. Recognition from the Ming throne, access
to Chinese economic resources, and occasional recourse to Ming military
support strengthened the position of these local leaders. However, the admin-
istration of regions under their control was staffed by local men rather than
officials dispatched by the central government. 52 Local populations were not
rigorously integrated into the household registration system. One scholar has
characterized the result as "dual sovereignty". 53 During the periodic struggles
among local elites, incumbents and challengers might call upon Ming sup-
port. The Ming state, however, had a poor record of exercising effective con-
trol. Many officials argued against becoming entangled in violent struggles
that were imperfectly understood and seldom essential to critical strategic
interests of the dynasty. 54 However, local leaders regularly contributed units of
men to bolster Ming imperial forces in campaigns throughout most of China.
Finally, before turning to our common comparative axes and taxonomies,
some discussion of the changing composition of wages is in order. Early in
the dynasty, active-service men from hereditary military households - from
senior officers to humble soldiers - picked up salaries in kind each month
from imperial granaries. Dynastic regulations stipulated that each month
a garrison commander was to receive 12 shi (each shi was equivalent to 3.1
bushels or about 130 pounds), an assistant commander 8.5 shi, a chiliarch
(that is, a commander of roughly 1,000 troops) 5.4 shi, a battalion com-
mander 1.5 shi, and a common soldier 1 shi. Married soldiers with depend-
ants generally received approximately 20 per cent to 30 per cent more than
single soldiers without dependants. However, due to a variety of factors,
all ranks generally received only between half and two-thirds of their
51 Iwai, "China's Frontier Society in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries"; Wei, "Mingdai
Menggu zhubu dui guishun Hanren de renyong jiqi junshi yingxiang".
52 There was periodic debate about the relative advantages of staffing by local men or those
dispatched from the central government.
53 Herman, Amid the Clouds and Mists, pp. 105-117.
54 Shin, The Making of the Chinese State, pp. 56-105.
58
DAVID M. ROBINSON
official salaries (see below). 55 Even taking into account the loss of wages
to individual soldiers, the financial burden to the state was considerable.
In 1373 for instance, the state distributed more than 3 million shi of grain
just to troops in the capital at Nanjing. 56 Finally in the early decades of the
dynasty, the state provided monthly stipends of 0.5 shi to the widows of
soldiers, provided they did not remarry. 57
Before I address the considerable temporal and spatial variations behind
these figures, however, a broader picture of wages and prices provides some
perspective on the position of military labor. As an overarching general-
ity, garrison soldiers earned approximately the same wages as an average
urban laborer, while officers received more. According to Ray Huang, rural
men specially recruited by the famous general Qi Jiguang during the mid-
sixteenth century were also "paid at the rate of day laborers". 58 Both garrison
regulars and hired soldiers enjoyed the possibility of rewards for action on
the battlefield such as taking enemy heads or particularly valorous acts.
During the waning decades of the sixteenth century, servants in the
county offices of Wanping (in Beijing) earned on average 4.2 ounces of
silver each year, wages in rice having largely been converted to payments
in silver. Porters, water carriers, and day laborers in the capital earned
about the same. During the last half of the sixteenth century, 1 shi of rice
was normally worth a bit more than half a tael of silver (but subject to
market fluctuations especially in times of harvest failures). Clerks in the
government offices in Wanping earned 6 dou (one dou was equivalent to
9.9 quarts) each month but also received accommodation and furnishings.
The income of most of the working urban population in Beijing fell between
4 and 6 ounces of silver a year.
Given the relatively modest wages of Ming soldiers, rewards and bonuses
could constitute a significant addition to their routine revenue. The variety
and scale of "gifts" from the throne are discussed below. Killing an enemy in
battle could earn bonuses of between 10 and 30 ounces of silver - provided
that a state official verified the circumstances of the kill and the identity
55 Kawagoe, "DaiMin kai ten ni mieru Mindai eijokan no getsuryogaku o megutte", pp. 39-40.
56 Okuyama, "Kobucho no men ma no shikyu ni tsuite", p. 12.
57 Okuyama, "Minsho ni okeru gunshi no kazoku to yukyu ni tsuite". Okuyama suggests that
as a result of government stipend incentives, the early Ming capital in Nanjing was home to a
large number of military widows.
58 Huang, 758/, A Year of No Significance, p. 172. Qi's men, who were recruited in southern China,
received 10 ounces of silver a year. When they were deployed near the Great Wall in the north,
wages increased to 18 ounces a year (ibid., p. 251 n. 67). These are prescriptive figures that do
not take into account possible losses through corruption or administrative inefficiency.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
59
of the corpse. Even amounts that might seem trivial on first glance in fact
were proportionally large. For instance, in 1510 as part of its effort to mollify
soldiers from the northwestern garrisons of Ningxia, the court awarded
each soldier 1 ounce of silver, a bonus amounting to approximately one
month's wages. 59
In terms of purchasing power, in the capital during the late sixteenth
century, 1.3 pounds of wheat flour cost 0.008 ounces of silver; a pound of pork
was 0.02 ounces of silver; a pound of either mutton and beef was 0.015 ounces
of silver; a pound of pears was 0.05 ounces of silver, and eggplants cost 0.004
ounces of silver each. 60 During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries, a painting from the previous Song or Yuan dynasties might fetch
anywhere from 5 to 10 ounces of silver to the astronomical figure of 1,000
ounces. 61
As noted above, the Ming founder hoped that military units would be
largely self-supporting. To that end, each active-service soldier was to re-
ceive 50 mou (1 mou was approximately 0.14 acre; 50 mou was about 7 acres)
of land, which he shared with other male immediate family members of the
original military household who had traveled with him. The active-service
soldier was to keep half of the harvest to support himself and his family;
the rest was to be turned over to garrison authorities. In reality, variation
in the quality and availability of land ensured that soldiers received plots of
different sizes. On the northern border, where soil was relatively poor and
the population relatively sparse, and where this arrangement was intended
as a way to stimulate agricultural development, a soldier might farm 70 or
80 mou (approximately 10 and 11 acres, respectively), whereas in places like
the southeast with more productive lands and less land available, he might
receive only 20 mou (less than 3 acres).
During the first half of the fifteenth century, the amount of grain that the
state derived from these lands (nominally half the production) fluctuated
sharply. One Japanese scholar has documented a dramatic drop from ap-
proximately 20 million shi (62 million bushels or 1.3 million tons) to 5 million
shi (325,000 tons) in the two decades between 1403 and 1424. After a brief
rise to 9 million shi, by 1434, the figure seems to have dropped to 2 million.
Thus within the space of thirty years, the revenue from farmlands available
59 Ming Wuzong shilu, 62.ioa-i2a; 67.1b. However, to put this into perspective, one senior court
minister received 100 ounces of silver for his contribution to putting down the same abortive
princely revolt. See Li, "Zou wei ci mian en ming shi", II, pp. 518-519.
60 These figures come from Geiss, "Peking under the Ming (1368-1644)", pp. 156, 177-189.
61 Clunas, Appendix II, "Selected Prices for Works of Art and Antique Artifacts c. 1560-1620".
60
DAVID M. ROBINSON
for soldiers' salaries dropped by go per cent. 62 It is unclear, however, whether
this was merely the amount transported to the capital or if it included the
amount received locally by the garrison administration. After all, there had
to be sufficient grain available locally for the garrisons to feed the troops.
The government responded in several ways, depending on the nature of
the local economy and the particular needs of the moment. In economically
developed regions, commercial taxes were used to pay military salaries. For
instance, in affluent Jiading, a portion of commercial taxes civil authorities
assessed on shop fronts went to salaries in nearby Taicang and Zhenjiang
Garrisons. As noted above, salaries for soldiers on the northern border were
often subsidized by generous annual payments from the central government.
A related question is the nature of wages. The Ming founder set salaries
in rice. Rice does not grow equally well in all places (and not at all along the
northern border mentioned above), is expensive to transport overland because
of its weight, and is subject to rotting if not properly stored. Thus, some kind of
conversion, if only into other grains or beans, had always been in place. By the
early fifteenth century, the Ming state began to commute a portion of monthly
wages into paper currency. Thus for example, a garrison commander who drew
a monthly salary of 10 ski might receive 80 per cent in rice; the state would then
convert the value of the remaining 2 shi of rice into paper money. During the
Ming (unlike the Yuan period), however, paper money never really caught on.
In fact, it rapidly and consistently lost value. Hence, even partial commutation
of wages into paper currency was not popular among military families for
obvious reasons. During the 1430s, one source of resentment against Mongol
officers stationed in Beijing was that they received their entire salary in rice.
In response to these complaints, by the mid-fifteenth century, the Ming
state often commuted a portion of military salaries into items such as cotton
textiles, black pepper, and other spices. By the mid-sixteenth century, the
commutation of salaries into silver became increasingly common.
Shifting military challenges shaped wages. Okuyama Norio has shown
that the Ming state's deployment of large numbers of troops to the northern
border for an extended period of time in the wake of the Tumu defeat of 1449
deeply influenced soldiers' wages. As noted above, soldiers normally received
their salaries, whether in grain, cash, or otherwise, from the granaries of
the garrisons in which they served. During short-term deployments, to the
northern border for instance, local border garrisons would pay them "travel
wages" until they returned home. Dependants, who did not accompany
62 Kawagoe Yasuhiro, "DaiMin kai ten ni mieru Mindai eijokan no getsuryogaku o megutte",
PP- 39-40.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
61
soldiers on such tours, continued to draw the monthly salary at the home
garrison granaries. When, in an effort to meet the Mongol challenge, the
Ming state deployed tens of thousands of soldiers from hinterland garrisons
to the north for years at a time, several problems emerged.
Particularly serious was the question of dependants. Soldiers often
returned home to visit their families, with or without permission. To
ameliorate such a problem, the state experimented with having family
dependants accompany soldiers and officers to their new posts rather than
remain in their original garrison unit. Another problem was that the men's
regular salaries were still disbursed at their original garrisons. Traveling
back and forth to pick up their wages was time-consuming and expensive.
Some who returned home to pick up their wages did not return to their
new assignments. Commanders along the northern border (and in the
southern theater where Ming armies were periodically deployed to suppress
aboriginal uprisings) successfully petitioned the throne to allow men to
receive their monthly wages from granaries wherever they were currently
deployed. For this measure to work, border garrisons (and smaller forts)
needed to build and then fill new granaries. The construction of granaries
was the easy part; securing sufficient grain on an ongoing basis proved
more challenging. Administrative measures were also needed to ensure
that wages were not paid twice.
As noted above, transporting grain overland was expensive and time-
consuming, so garrisons experimented with a number of alternate strategies.
One was more extensive use of commutation into items that could be easily
transported - yet families still needed to eat. Another was for garrisons to
dispatch officers to travel to the major granaries and storehouses of the
capital and elsewhere to pick up grain on behalf of the entire garrison;
sell it locally in order to purchase things like salt, pepper, etc.; and finally
transport these goods back to the local garrison. There, soldiers would
receive the goods as salary and sell them in order to purchase the goods
they needed. For most soldiers, the various commutations undermined their
economic positions. In still other cases, a mixed approach was adopted. For
instance, soldiers from one garrison on the border received 80 per cent of
their salaries in grain. The remaining 20 per cent was commuted to cash,
which during the first six months of the year, they could pick up at local
government offices. During the second half of the year, 20 per cent of their
salary was commuted to pepper and other spices, which they had to get in
specialized storehouses in the capital. 63
63 This section is drawn from Okuyama, "Mingun no kyuyo shikyu ni tsuite", pp. 133-143.
62
DAVID M. ROBINSON
At the same time that the Ming military responded to shifting economic,
demographic, and administrative needs, it also transformed China. Econom-
ic historians have pointed out that the network required to supply northern
frontier garrisons with goods from the south was one of the central factors
shaping the entire Ming economy, including its banking and monetization.
Sixteenth-century officials were acutely aware that commuting soldiers'
salaries into silver subjected them to fluctuations in the price of grain.
Many reported to the throne that 1 shi of grain was commonly converted
into 0.7 taels of silver, sufficient to purchase only 0.6 or 0.7 shi of rice on the
market. In some cases, the rate was as low as 0.2 shi, a loss of 80 per cent
of the nominative value of soldiers' salaries. Officials debated how to best
address this vulnerability to price variation and impoverishment of military
families. In 1538, the court approved plans to adjust rates of commutation
according to grain prices. However, throughout the rest of the sixteenth
century, the problem persisted. Either adjustments lagged too far behind
market changes or local officials were reluctant to break from established
conversion rates. Another solution was a partial return to payment in kind,
most commonly with soldiers receiving rice for three months of the year
and silver for the remaining nine months. 64
Local officials, individual military commanders and court ministers
worked to address questions as they arose and showed considerable flex-
ibility in their approach to the economic and military challenges posed
by changes in determining, funding, and distributing soldiers' wages. As
one might expect given the larger socioeconomic changes transforming
China, however, there was no simple solution that perfectly matched the
demands of the state with the needs of its military personnel. Throughout
the sixteenth century, soldiers (and their officers) periodically organized
protests, especially in garrisons along the northern border, almost always
in response to state actions that undercut their economic interests. These
ranged from short-term and poorly coordinated cases, where violence
was limited to screaming in the night and the threat of more, to military
uprisings that lasted for months and required large-scale responses from
the central government. 65
64 Okuyama, "Mindai no hokuhen ni okeru gunji no getsuryo ni tsuite", pp. 155-162.
65 In 1509-1510, riots and at least one mutiny greeted the court's efforts to reassess tax rates on
military farmlands (Robinson, "Princely Revolts and the Ming Polity"). For discussion of mutinies
in Liaodong in 1535, see Morohoshi, "Mindai Ryoto no gunton ni kansuru ichi kosatsu", "Ryoto
heihen to Ro Kei". On the mid-century mutinies in Datong, see Hagiwara, "Mindai Kaseiki no
Daito hanran to Mongoria". On the 1592-1593 Ningxia mutiny, see Okano, "Banreki nijunen Neiha
heihen"; Swope, "All Men Are Not Brothers".
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
63
Variables, axes, taxonomies, and hypothesis
Zhao Zhongnan has been among the few scholars to discuss the legal status
of housemen. He argues that although they may have enjoyed a superior
social status as measured in terms of their salaries and privileges granted
by their patrons, they possessed the same legal status as garrison troops.
The Ming Code, the imperial legal code of the Ming dynasty, distinguished
between those registered in civilian households and men registered in
hereditary military households, most especially active-service soldiers.
Zhao points to a regulation in the Collected Administrative Statutes of the
Great Ming Dynasty, which stipulates that housemen were subject to the
same Grand Reviews conducted by senior officials in the Chief Military
Commission and Ministry of War that tested skills in riding and archery.
He also notes that when their patrons were demoted, exiled, or suffered
punitive beatings, housemen were subject to similar punishments. 66 This is
a promising line of inquiry but Zhao's evidence here is far from compelling
in terms of legal status. The Great Ming Code did not make garrison soldiers
culpable for the transgressions of their commanding officers. Nor did it
demand troops to follow their commander into exile.
The legal status of those registered in hereditary military households,
in contrast, was clearer. They had an obligation to provide lifetime (or at
least from the mid- to late teens to around 60) military service to the state,
which in turn entitled them to regular wages (however inadequate), the use
of government lands for farming for their own or accompanying families
(though the probability of securing such lands diminished over the course
of the dynasty), some tax and corvee breaks, and the possibility of medical
care and economic assistance if they fell ill or were injured. 67 Maintaining
the massive garrison system, including its affiliated operations such as
garrison schools, military examinations, training, benefits for widowed
wives and/or orphaned children, etc., registration, and the voluminous
paperwork required to keep things functioning, was difficult and costly.
The Ming state, like the previous Yuan dynasty, consciously followed a
policy that kept large numbers of men formally registered in military house-
66 Zhao, "Lun Mingdai jundui zhong jiading de tidian yu diwei", p. 148.
67 Regional variation marked the availability of medicine and quality of doctors for garrisons,
as an official from the northwestern frontier of the empire complained in 1438 (Ming Yingzong
shilu, 37.8a). Nonetheless, the state was expected to provide such resources even for distant
border units.
64
DAVID M. ROBINSON
holds. 68 As noted above, this was done to maintain a broad and stable labor
pool that could be used not only for defending the dynasty (e.g., guarding
frontier borders, maintaining internal security, and suppressing revolts) but
also for maintaining its infrastructure (e.g., transporting tax grain, construct-
ing city walls, repairing dikes and other water works, etc.). This vast dynastic
labor reservoir also served a prophylactic function; it absorbed men who
might otherwise contribute to rival labor pools, such as criminal bands, rebel
groups, or transnational communities, which challenged the Ming state.
Few contemporary observers, however, viewed these arrangements as
either foolproof or static. In their discussions of the military, Ming com-
mentators regularly invoked the phrase "In terms of soldiers, quality is more
precious than quantity." Writing in the late sixteenth century, the historian
Lang Ying complained:
Today the military is no fewer than 1 million men and there are more
than 200,000 in the capital. This can be said to be ample. Yet, when a
region has a crisis, then troops are deployed from the Capital Gar-
risons, Datong, and Yulin [border regions]. Each time they are killed in
great numbers. High ministers devote themselves to papering things
over. When compared to the ancients who with several thousand men
would decimate the enemy and with several tens of thousands were
unbeatable wherever they turned, they were really no match. Today we
can say that we have no military. 69
Elsewhere, Lang turned his attention to the comparative efficacy of hired
soldiers and imperial regulars. He wrote that in antiquity the establishment
of an army was to prevent disaster, but that in his day the establishment of
the army was a disaster. He argued that garrison troops contributed nothing
to the defense of the dynasty or the people. In cases of conflict, those who
actually engaged the enemy were either local commoners or hired soldiers
from other provinces. Similarly, those who died at the hands of the enemy
were either male and female subjects from the area or those recruited
68 Although the even earlier Song dynasty (960-1279) did not employ the hereditary military
household system, it did maintain extremely large armies at great expense in an effort to impose
effective control over portions of the population that might otherwise challenge state authority
or at least local government. The state also frequently turned to its armies as a general source
of labor for infrastructure projects.
69 Lang, "San wu", p. 154; Ming edn held at Zhongshan Library, i3.iob-na; reprinted in Si ku
quan shu cun mu cong shu, zi 102, p. 545. The entry was entitled "Three Nones", referring to no
music, no history, and no military.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
65
from elsewhere. Thus, the dynasty shouldered the burden of supporting
garrison troops without gaining any defense for the people. Lang proposed
that the state hold Grand Reviews, where garrison troops would compete
with hired soldiers in archery and other events. If the garrison troops won,
they would receive half the money used to pay hired soldiers. If the hired
soldiers won, half the grain used to pay garrison troops would be used to
hire more soldiers. 70 Lang's views suggest that in addition to socioeconomic
changes, shifting elite attitudes toward the worth of the hereditary military
household system may have facilitated the growing use of hired soldiers.
Taxonomy of armies
The Ming military does not fit easily into our taxonomy of feudal army,
aggregate contract army, state commission army, conscript army, and mod-
ern volunteer army (or John Lynn's slightly wider taxonomy from which I
draw). Some elements of the Ming case resemble the state commission army.
These include raising the army from among the ruler's subjects and in the
case of hired troops, the role of officers in recruiting troops, and enlisting
voluntarily as individuals. 71 Yet, the core of the Ming army at least through
1500 was the hereditary military households and its garrisons. These units
were not recruited by officers but served on a compulsory basis by specially
designated households that legally owed the state military labor.
In other ways, the garrison system might be seen as a sort of mass reserve
army in that most of the time most soldiers spent their time farming rather
than drilling or fighting. During a time of war, armies were assembled from
the ranks of garrison troops and augmented through hired soldiers and/
or aboriginal forces. Yet, garrison troops generally lived in or near garrison
forts and cities, received wages and benefits from the imperial govern-
ment, and were subject to bureaucratic and legal treatment distinctive to
hereditary military households.
At the risk of sounding a discordant note in our common enterprise, I
would suggest that assigning the Ming a place within a taxonomy explicitly
derived from the historical particulars of western Europe (and its projec-
tions) probably obscures more than it illuminates. Large central states
emerged early in China: they developed fully articulated bureaucracies,
demonstrated the ability to extract considerable resources (labor, material,
70 Lang, Jin rijun, II, pp. 660-661.
71 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West", p. 518.
66
DAVID M. ROBINSON
and money) from enormous populations that pursued diversified economic
and social strategies, and possessed advanced technological and logistical
(including military) capabilities. They predated the rise of "nation-states"
in Europe by many centuries. The lack of anything comparable to the
European aristocracy (after the tenth century), the early and sustained
dominance of the imperial throne in the political and ideological realms,
and the lack of contending paradigmatic armies (which is not the same
as the disinclination or inability to adapt new technologies or methods)
meant that many of the critical causal factors implicit in our taxonomy
are less germane than they are in the case of western Europe. This is not
to argue for a distinctive Oriental warfare per se but to acknowledge that
the development of the Chinese military followed a different trajectory or
at least a different chronology (certainly prior to 1800) than the one Lynn
identified (and which he explicitly described as "a cultural and geographical
pattern unique to the West"). 72 Given that we are attempting to provide a
global perspective on military labor, we should not reduce the rich diversity
of historical experience of places such as China, Russia, or India to schemata
derived from the recent "West". The more pressing task would seem to be
to reformulate our ideas in the light of new research and a wider body of
empirical information. 73 Even allowing for such caveats, some of our other
terms of comparison have clear applicability for the Chinese case.
Free/unfree labor
On first blush, soldiers registered in hereditary military households would
seem in most ways to fall into the category of unfree labor. They spent the
vast majority of their time as tenant farmers on government-allocated lands
and were subject to life service in the ranks of the imperial military. They
did not enter into this service voluntarily; it was a hereditary responsibil-
ity of the household into which they were born. To abandon their lands,
leave their posts, or avoid their burdens was to invite harsh disciplinary
retribution by the Ming state.
72 Ibid., p. 506. Different trajectories do not preclude comparisons. For a systematic compara-
tive study of the "military revolution" in Asia, see Lorge, The Asian Military Revolution. Lorge
argues that European military systems and possibly governmental institutions needed "to
become more Chinese before they could take full advantage of guns" (p. 21).
73 For calls to integrate greater historical depth and geographical variety into understandings
of labor and migration, see Van der Linden, Workers of the World, pp. 1-6; Hoerder, Cultures in
Contact, pp. 8-14; Lucassen, et at, Migration History in World History, pp. 7-17.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
67
However, when we use terms such as "free" and "unfree" labor, we must
remember that from its earliest days, the hereditary household system was
porous. Escape was possible through illegal means such as bribes, false
registration, self-maiming, and desertion. More importantly, the natural
growth in the size of families meant that, over time, the relative burden of
military service for the entire family diminished. It might pose a debilitat-
ing burden for an individual man or even his immediate family, but most
members of the extended family would not feel the pinch at all, especially
if they were located hundreds of miles apart. In fact, through success in
business, the civil service examination, or crime, they could put substantial
distance between themselves and relatives who served in military garrisons
or in military agricultural colonies. Further complicating the situation was
the fact that many soldiers simultaneously pursued other forms of employ-
ment, which ranged from the sale of their military skills and equipment to
private patrons, to menial labor in roadside eateries. It is tempting then to
see them as what Marcel van der Linden has termed "subaltern workers". 74
Hired soldiers during the Ming should be considered free labor. These
included both men who served in militias organized by county magistrates
or local elites and those who offered their services as military retainers or
housemen for imperial generals or civil officials. Men who fought for illicit
groups such as bandits, pirates, and rebels might include both free and
unfree labor, depending on the degree and variety of coercion involved in
recruitment and retention.
Commodified/noncommodified labor
As many scholars have shown, conceptions of labor and wages have varied
significantly according to time and place. Although at one level, commodi-
fied labor may be understood as a purely financial transaction whereby one
party remunerates another party for his or her time, skill, and productive
labor, such relations are embedded in larger social, cultural, and religious
structures. Thus, it is not surprising to read in contemporary Ming sources
that the imperial throne periodically "bestowed gifts" of gold, silver, paper
74 For insightful comments on the assumptions implicit in common notions of social classes,
see Van der Linden, Workers of the World, pp. 28-32. Van der Linden stresses the grey areas
between social classes, that most subaltern worker households combined several modes of
labor, and that individual subaltern workers often "combined different modes of labor, both
synchronically and diachronically" (p. 32).
68
DAVID M. ROBINSON
currency, bolts of cotton, winter gowns, shoes, or even pepper upon its sol-
diers. The scale of the payments was frequently enormous and represented
a sizeable if to date poorly analyzed portion of soldiers' remuneration from
the state. As an illustrative if randomly selected example, let us consider
the summer of 1388 during the early days of the dynasty. In June the em-
peror gave more than 209,300 soldiers and officers from Suzhou and other
southern garrisons in excess of 109,900 taels of gold and silver, 30,000 taels
in paper currency, and 307,600 bolts of cloth. 75 Little more than two weeks
later, the court announced rewards of 46,000 in cash, 255,000 bolts of cot-
ton textiles, and 174,300 pounds of cotton fabric for approximately 153,000
troops from the northern garrisons of Beiping, Jizhou, and elsewhere. 76 In
July, the throne again announced gifts for nearly 200,000 soldiers in the
Fuzhou garrisons and almost 160,000 troops in the Fujian garrisons. 77
Such gifts from the throne represented a considerable transfer of wealth
to military personnel. One study has calculated that between 1369 and 1374
the throne issued 1 million taels of silver in gifts. Between 1368 and 1391,
Hongwu ordered the distribution of more than 12 million bolts of cotton
textiles, 3 million pounds of cotton, and 1.7 million sets of clothing as gifts.
Approximately 80 per cent of such gifts went to the military. 78
This rhetoric of imperial munificence owed something to Hongwu's
consistent efforts to establish authority and control in all facets of Ming
life. He adopted the pose of a generous patriarch who cared for his people,
including his warriors. Imperial mercy and munificence were to be recip-
rocated with gratitude, loyalty, and the desire to "repay the dynasty" {bao
guo, bao xiao). The rhetoric of reciprocal obligations was not restricted to
the ruler and his military but formed a pervasive element of contempo-
rary conceptions of social life, religious practice, and political behavior.
It is worth remembering that the army was of crucial importance to the
fledgling regime. To the degree that we are interested in Van der Linden's
question of "which perceptions do the actors on the stage of history have
of the reality that surrounds them, of themselves, and [of] each other", it
is important not to dismiss gifts from our consideration of military labor
relations. 79 Occasional gifts from the emperor, in contrast to regular wages
in cash and kind distributed by garrison authorities, were intended to forge
75 Ming Taizu shilu, 190.4a.
76 Ibid., 190.5b.
77 Ibid., 191.3b.
78 Okuyama, "Kobucho no men ma no shikyu ni tsuite", pp. 1-3.
79 Van der Linden, Workers of the World, p. 371.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
69
a direct tie between the Son of Heaven and humble soldiers, regardless of
how tenuous that bond may have been in reality.
At the same time, Hongwu was fully aware that many officers treated
their troops poorly and repeatedly reminded his commanders that they
owed their success to the efforts of the common soldier. 80 Battles were won
not through the individual heroics of generals but through soldiers' loyalty
to their commanders and their willingness to risk their lives in combat. To
win such loyalty, commanders had to care for the material needs of their
men on a regular basis. 81 Even in a political system as efficient and central-
ized as Ming China, and even with his exceptional power, Hongwu had no
choice but to rely on many intermediate levels of administration to collect
and distribute wages, supplies, and even his gifts to the dynasty's soldiers.
For this reason, he tried again and again to convince the officer corps that
good treatment of the troops, including the fair and timely distribution of
wages, was integral to advancing their own self-interest. 82
For later Ming rulers who lacked the charisma of the dynastic founder,
such demonstrations of imperial munificence could be even more critical.
Midway through the dynasty in 1521, the newly enthronedjiajing emperor,
eager to secure the loyalty of his military, announced his intention to bestow
2 taels of silver on each border soldier in recognition of their hardships. After
consultation with the Ministry of War and commanding officers from the
border, the court disbursed 743,812 taels of silver to 371,906 men. 83 In April
1521, his cousin and predecessor the Zhengde emperor had died without
an heir or a designated successor. Desperate consultations between senior
court ministers and the Empress Dowager led to the choice of Jiajing, a
complete outsider to the capital and court politics. The new emperor and
his advisors purged the court of many prominent military generals who
had enjoyed privileged access to the late emperor. Some of these military
men had originally hailed from border garrisons such as Liaodong, Datong,
and Xuanfu. Thus, Jiajing no doubt considered the massive sum of nearly
750,000 taels of silver a smart investment in his future.
Remuneration as gift-giving was not restricted to emperors. As Arthur
Waldron has noted, nearly one-third of one early sixteenth-century official's
80 Two of eight injunctions issued on one occasion in August 1388 by Hongwu to his military
commanders related directly to treating their men with benevolence and not inflicting injury
on them (Ming Taizu shilu, 193.5a).
81 Ibid., igi.3b-4b.
82 Ibid., ig2.2b-3a.
83 Ming Shizong shitu, 3.2a-b.
70
DAVID M. ROBINSON
budget for wall-building was dedicated to gifts for troops. 84 Magistrates and
men of local standing similarly appealed to the rhetoric of gift-giving in
the context of securing military labor. In times of crisis when men of either
governmental or social authority needed to quickly raise levies of men for
local militias, they held large banquets for which they would slaughter cows
and provide liquor to recruits. The hope was that by showing their social
inferiors such honor and respect, elites would secure the men's gratitude
and obedience, at least long enough to ride out the crisis. Accounts of
banquet-giving are often accompanied by efforts to raise funds to pay for
the recruits. Scattered accounts indicate that the magistrate or man of local
standing might sell off a portion of his personal assets to generate cash to
be used as wages. The nitty-gritty details of exactly how the men arranged
such transactions and with whom are rarely available.
The use of banquets to secure the allegiance of men able and willing
to provide military service was not restricted to men employed by or sup-
porting the state. Rebels, brigands, and other men of violence used exactly
the same methods to create bonds of patron and client or, in terms more
recognizable to men of the day, older and younger brother, lord and follower.
The enormously popular sixteenth-century vernacular novel Heroes of the
Water Marsh (Shut hu zhuan) describes scores of greater and lesser such
banquets. In addition to the obvious social dimensions of these banquets,
they also served as an economic marker. Only a patron of some economic
resources could hold a sufficiently generous banquet that would allow
conspicuous consumption of meat and drink. It was also understood that
the host, whether magistrate, man of local standing, or aspiring brigand
chief, would retain the services of his men only so long as he continued to
pay them.
In addition to regular wages paid in money and/or grain and periodic
gifts of cash, clothing, or food items, soldiers received special rewards for
their exploits on the battlefield. Ming troops who killed enemy soldiers
were eligible for rewards in silver or promotion. To prove their claims, Ming
troops were required to present the decapitated head of the enemy to civil
officials, who were responsible both for verifying that the head belonged
to an enemy combatant rather than, say, a civilian and for submitting the
paperwork. Early in the sixteenth century, the posted reward for an enemy
head along the northern border was 50 taels of silver. Private markets in
places such as Liaodong, however, sold decapitated enemy heads, a practice
84 Waldron, The Great Wall of China, p. 133.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
71
that the imperial government tried without success to eliminate. 85 Rates
for decapitated heads taken from the hinterlands or from the southern
border were generally lower. The thinking was that they were taken from
less fearsome foes.
To summarize, the Ming military labor market might be characterized
as flexible and segmented. A portion of military labor, those registered in
hereditary military households, was unfree insofar as such men were legally
bound to offer military service to the state for their entire adult life, barring
incapacitating injury, premature death, or dismissal for misbehavior or
incompetence. However, it should be remembered that, even within heredi-
tary military households, only a small proportion of men were called upon
to render military (or other) labor to the state. Furthermore, in exchange
for their labor, they received wages in goods and cash.
Hired soldiers, whether engaged for short or long terms, should be
considered free labor and commodified labor. They were paid primarily
in cash by the imperial government, local officials, or private influential
elites. However, part of their "compensation package" regularly included
additional "gifts" such as food, wine, and/or clothing. These gifts were es-
sential in the formation of bonds of loyalty and reciprocal obligation. As
incentives, the state also offered cash bonuses and promotions to both
garrison regulars and hired soldiers.
Remuneration for the third variety of Ming military labor, aboriginal
troops, is less clear but perhaps best understood as a variant of Lynn's feudal
or aggregate contract army in the following sense. Aboriginal warriors
might owe military service to tribal leaders, who in turn owed military
service to the Ming state. Thus, the Ming state in effect contracted en-
tire contingents of aboriginal warriors rather than recruiting individual
members. Aboriginal leaders, of course, expected remuneration from the
Ming state. Higher titles, gifts (in cash and kind) from the throne, and field
provisions were clearly part of the arrangement between the Ming state
and aboriginal leaders. Scattered evidence suggests that aboriginal forces
too were subject to the trend to commute supplies and wages to silver. In
the mid-sixteenth century, aboriginal troops from the southwest deployed
to fight piracy along the affluent eastern coastal regions received 80 per
cent of the value of their allocation of rice, fresh vegetables, and fuel for
cooking in silver. 86 Far less clear is whether the Ming state offered additional
85 Ming Shizong shilu, 3.11a.
86 Xujie, "Bi jian shi yi tiao", in Xu, Shijing tangji, 23.23b (Wanli edn held at Beijing University
Library; reprinted in Si ku quan shu cun mu cong shuji bu, LXXX, p. 103).
72
DAVID M. ROBINSON
cash payments. The nature of labor relations and compensation between
tribal leaders and aboriginal warriors is perhaps the most opaque part of
the equation. Thus, on the questions of free/unfree and commodified/
noncommodified labor, further research is needed.
Deciding factors in Ming military labor relations
With the exceptions of Suzuki Tadashi and Zhao Zhongnan, scholars
have shown limited interest in relating the rise of housemen (or any other
developments in the military) to wider socioeconomic developments. 87 By
the mid-fifteenth century, the Ming economy, including the assessment
and collection of taxes, had become partially monetized. Labor obligations
to the state could often be met through the payment of silver. 88 Changes
within the garrison system ultimately resulted from wider social develop-
ments. Although Wu Han, Xiao Xu, and others were no doubt correct to
draw attention to widespread corruption within the garrison system, the
entire hereditary household system - whether military, saltern, mining,
craftsmen, etc. - came to exercise a less direct influence on individual
families. People moved, families diversified their economic activities and
raised their social aspirations. This was less dynastic decline than a natural
sloughing off of administrative institutions inherited from the Mongol
empire, institutions that better reflected the interests and perspectives
of the Mongol elite than the realities of China's society or economy. The
growth of housemen and mercenaries of all kinds should be seen as part
and parcel of the overall trend toward the monetization of the economy,
particularly service and labor. 89
However, obligations imposed by the Ming state never vanished alto-
gether. Indeed, hereditary obligations linked to household registration
during the early Ming could exercise a profound influence on household and
lineage strategies. In an excellent case study based on the particulars of the
southeastern province of Fujian, Michael Szonyi has observed, "informally,
87 For another exception, see Qiu, "Mingdai zhongqianqi junfei gongji tedian de xingcheng
yu yanbian".
88 Heijdra, "The Socio-Economic Development of Rural China during the Ming".
89 Of course, private retainers and mercenaries were a longstanding feature of Chinese history,
dating back to the earliest imperial dynasties of the classical period (second century BC). See
Ma, "Mingdai de jiading", pp. 193-194. Monetization frequently undermined accepted social
hierarchies, which produced considerable unease among some Ming elite men. For a broad
treatment, see Brook, The Confusions of Pleasure.
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
73
military-registered households hired mercenaries themselves to fulfill their
obligations". He argues that "the Ming state's military and taxation systems
drove groups of kin to organize themselves". 90
Contemporary observers were fully aware that the dynastic military
system was inextricably tied to wider socioeconomic developments. Propos-
als were floated to monetize elements of military obligation to the state.
For instance, the "purification of troops", that is, tracking down and/or
replacement of missing soldiers, was laborious, expensive, and inefficient.
Some officials argued that a more effective policy would be to collect a fee in
silver from households who "owed" an active-service soldier to the state - in
the same way that households or communities that owed labor to the state
could commute the responsibility into silver payments (a transformation
nearly complete by the 1460s for some categories of service). 91 Deep concern
about the importance of the hereditary garrison system to the political,
economic, and military foundations of the dynasty, however, stymied any
fundamental reform.
This monetization did occur with some forms of military service. The
most obvious example was the decision to hire hundreds of thousands
of soldiers to augment hereditary garrison forces discussed in the first
section of the paper as a response to the battle of Tumu in 1449. The people's
stalwarts also witnessed a high degree of monetization. During the 1430s,
local administrators in various parts of the dynasty had begun to draft men
into local constabularies called people's stalwarts, that is, they were not
members of military households. Following the debacle at Tumu, people's
stalwarts were recruited in far larger numbers and their duties expanded to
include military functions, which in some cases meant incorporation into
garrison units. 92 By the end of the fifteenth century, the court formalized
the policy and issued orders for its empire-wide implementation. 93 After
experimenting with both conscription and hiring, many local magistrates
concluded that hiring military labor yielded better results than did coercive
recruiting. 94 The result was that the service levy appeared as a line item in
90 Szonyi, Practicing Kinship, pp. 61 and 23.
91 For a brief discussion and citations to relevant scholarship, see Wu (Go), Min Shin jidai no
yoekiseido to chiho gyosei, pp. 187-192.
92 Kawagoe, "Sokoki no minsosei ni tsuite".
93 Scholars debate the precise year. Saeki Tomi dates the national policy to 1489. See Saeki,
"Min Shin jidai no minso ni tsuite", p. 35. Ray Huang sees 1494 as the year it became dynastic
policy. See Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century China, p. 111.
94 Kawagoe stresses the importance of conscription during the 1450S-1480S ("Sokoki no
minsosei ni tsuite", pp. 26-27).
74
DAVID M. ROBINSON
local budgets, as say, forty people's stalwarts, with between 2 and 10 taels
of silver designated for each man's pay. 95 By 1500 or so, the silver to hire
militiamen was regularly apportioned across the local population, in the
form of either a land or a poll tax. 9 * 5 Estimates of how many people's stalwarts
were hired vary, but the scale was considerable - somewhere between
200,000 and 300,000 during the sixteenth century. 97 One consequence of
this policy was to increase the variability or elasticity of local budgets. In
times of military crisis, county and prefectural governments needed to hire
more militiamen quickly, which in turn necessitated a hike in local taxes
that were paid in silver. 98
Similarly, the military grain-transport system was subject to larger
changes within the Ming economy. The late fifteenth-century reforms rep-
resented a form of monetization. Prior to this time, some farmers had been
responsible for transporting tax grain to the capital, a duty that became far
more onerous when the capital was moved to the north. Now, they instead
paid a fee to local authorities and the military moved the grain. 99 During
the sixteenth century, the grain-transport soldiers ceased to serve much if
any military function. During the early fifteenth century, personnel had
been drawn from the pool of active-service garrison soldiers; by the 1430s,
"supernumerary soldiers", the men whose function was to aid active-service
soldiers, were used in large numbers; by 1500, men completely outside the
hereditary military households were increasingly hired as replacements.
This last group of men often comprised men who were sailors and trans-
port workers by trade. Men in the military grain-transport corps were not
expected to drill, nor were they expected to be proficient with arms. 100
Finally, the monetization of the economy, including many different kinds
of corvee labor due to the state, on this scale in turn was sustainable only
through Ming China's integration into the global economy, most particularly
the steady flow of silver from Spanish mines in the New World. 101
95 Estimates for wages are from Saeki, "Min Shinjidai no minso ni tsuite", pp. 53-59. People's
stalwarts might win additional bonuses for noteworthy service or be subject to fines for failing
to meet their quotas of, for instance, smugglers.
96 Ibid., p. 48.
97 Saeki Tomi (ibid.) suggests 300,000, while Liang Fangzhong prefers 200,000. See Liang,
"Mingdai de minbing", Zhongguo shehuijingjishijikan, 5.2 (1937), pp. 200-234; reprinted in Wu,
Mingshiyanjiu luncong, I, p. 266.
98 Huang, Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century China, pp. 111-112, 126.
99 Lin, "Mingdai caojunzhi chutan", p. 187.
100 Ibid., pp. 191-192.
101 The literature on silver and the Ming economy is voluminous. For a convenient point of
entry, see Atwell, "Ming China and the Emerging World Economy".
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
75
If changes in the Ming economy, particularly a trend toward monetiza-
tion, deeply shaped military labor relations, the highly fluid Chinese military
labor market also explains much. Nearly all commentators, whether capital
ministers, provincial authorities, county magistrates, or local elites, took
for granted that substantial numbers of men could be mobilized quickly for
military service. When a dangerous princely revolt occurred in 1519, rather
than depend on garrison forces, the well-known literatus Wang Yangming
(1472-1529) sought his troops locally, recruiting 2,000 to 3,000 men from
small counties and 4,000 to 5,000 men from large counties as a way to raise
an army quickly. The state provided provisions but the recruits supplied
their own weapons. 102 During the piracy crisis of the mid-sixteenth century,
one official, Zheng Xiao, offered the following proposal: "We should search
out and recruit ten men who are adept in martial arts. Each of them shall
instruct one hundred men. After one month, again have each one teach ten
men. Thus we will able to secure ten thousand men." 103 Although the official
expected that training would be necessary, he had no doubt about the pool
of men available. The initial training in this case, it should be noted, was
to be provided neither by the state nor by military instructors but by hired
soldiers already possessed of skills in the martial arts.
Similarly, well-informed officials assumed that arms of the day, includ-
ing bows and arrows, metal-linked whips, spears, cudgels, and swords,
circulated widely among the subject population. Writing in the midst of
a large-scale rebellion in 1510, the senior minister Yang Yiqing (1454-1530)
recommended that each household in regions affected by the rebellion
keep these weapons at hand. Strong young men and hired laborers fulfilling
their labor obligations toward the state were to drill with these weapons.
Likewise in the late sixteenth century, the famed official Lii Kun (1536-1618)
advocated regular drill, this time under the instruction of professional
instructors, in the use of "spears, swords, bows and arrows, short cudgels,
rope whips and other such weapons" during agricultural slack periods. 104
Implicit in these various proposals was the idea that the state or its
local representatives could shed excess military personnel once a crisis
had passed. Although some advocated registering new recruits into the
hereditary military system, others explicitly rejected such a policy. Their
most common argument was that permanent registration would undermine
102 Okuyama, "Shotoku Chinko no ran ni tsuite", p. 108.
103 Zheng Liizhun, Zheng Duan jian gong nian pu, 3.22b (Wanli edn held at Shanghai Library;
reprinted inSiku quanshu cun mucong shu, shi 83, p. 558).
104 Robinson, Bandits, Eunuchs, and the Son of Heaven, p. 95.
76
DAVID M. ROBINSON
recruiting efforts. Men were attracted by the promise of cash and repelled
by permanent obligation, they insisted. 105
Ad hoc recruiting held appeal for several reasons. For local officials, it
provided a relatively high degree of autonomy. They could mobilize local
men without incurring long-term fiscal responsibilities, responsibilities
that would have required substantial modification of tax regimes, which
in turn would have meant negotiation not only with higher-ups but also
with local populations. Similarly for the central government, local ad hoc
recruiting offered several advantages. It was one way to mitigate the chal-
lenges that great distances and enormous regional variation posed in the
age before telegraphs and steam-powered travel. Local officials (or at least
their staffs) had a surer sense of how and where to recruit quickly. Increasing
the number of hereditary military households would have expanded an
already overstretched bureaucratic structure and, in principle, put garrison
authorities on the hook for expenses related to medical care, assistance to
widows and orphans of fallen soldiers, and stipends to the lame. 106 For better
or for worse, the flexible military labor market saved the central government
from the need to push through large-scale fundamental reforms.
Critics of recruiting focused on concerns of finance, security, and govern-
ance. Officials frequently expressed frustration that the state's vast financial
commitment to the hereditary military household system was essentially
money down the drain. Hiring mercenaries required additional funds on
top of standing obligations. These costs could add up quickly. Less than one
year after advocating hiring martial artists as troops and trainers as part
of an effort to organize a force of 10,000 men, Zheng Xiao expressed some
surprise that "within a week's time of the pirates entering our jurisdiction,
we have already used more than 9,000 taels of silver for recruiting soldiers,
feeding them, paying out on bonuses, and providing rewards". 107
The ability of the central government, county magistrates, military
commanders, and even private subjects with sufficient social status and
105 In 1431, a military officer from the border region of Shaanxi suggested that men who had
served in earlier military expeditions in the steppe be kept as a kind of reserve force that would
report monthly for drill. The court rejected his proposal. Implicit in its reasoning was that, once
men had completed their tour, the soldiers would return to their original units and civilians
would return to their farms or herds (Ming Xuanzong shilu, 76.8b).
106 Sometimes wages continued to be issued to soldiers even after their death on distant
battlefields, usually because it took some time before garrison authorities received notification
of death. Occasionally they tried (usually unsuccessfully) to make bereaved family members
repay such wages (Ming Yingzong shilu, 36.5a-b).
107 Zheng Liizhun, Zheng Duan jiangong nian pu, 3.35a (Si ku quan shu cun mu cong shu, shi 83,
P- 565)-
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
77
economic means to recruit hundreds or even thousands of men quickly (in
the space of days or weeks) strongly suggests the existence of a large pool
of young men whose labor could be temporarily removed from agricultural
production, animal husbandry, artisanal occupations, and other economic
activities. This situation is perhaps most profitably viewed from the per-
spective of family units rather than individuals. Many families pursued
sophisticated economic strategies of diversification designed to hedge
against risks. Thus, although agricultural production might comprise the
core economic activity of the family, individuals within the family would
commonly engage in other activities, either full- or part-time. Adult females
might contribute to family production through weaving, peddling jewelry,
selling food as small vendors, etc. Adult males might work for part of the
year on other people's farms, engage in commerce, fish, hunt, etc. Children
could serve as herders for cows and sheep or help with simple tasks on the
farm. Thus, many households pursued diverse economic activities in a way
that allowed for variable but relatively predictable factors, such as season,
natural resources, and age, and for other less predictable factors, such as
epidemic, drought, warfare, or dramatic changes in the composition of the
household.
Thus short-time service in the military was one element of a larger
strategy of economic diversification pursued at the level of individual
households or groups of households linked through kinship and or marriage.
Young men might serve for a single "tour" of several months or might serve
periodically over a more extended period of time depending on demand
within the military labor market.
The dynamic for men who served as mercenaries for longer periods
of time differed in several important ways. Although such men, too, are
best understood in the context of larger family economic strategies, their
absence was generally more enduring. Detailed documentary material
related to their contributions to larger family units is limited, but evidence
from men serving in hereditary military households would suggest that time
and distance often weakened economic ties to larger family units. To the
degree that "housemen" became long-term retainers, it seems likely (but
far from certain) that regular, substantial contributions to their original
household may have diminished. An initial study of one region famed in the
sixteenth century as a source of military labor, Yiwu County, indicates that
military service dramatically influenced local demographics. "Most young
men in Yiwu", wrote one sixteenth-century observer, "have given up their
original trade, responded to recruiting drives, and joined the army". Local
78
DAVID M. ROBINSON
officials complained that the resultant dearth of young men impinged on
their ability to secure sufficient labor for government needs. 108
As noted above, the conditions of service of "household men" varied
significantly, from fairly straightforward short-term arrangements whereby
they received cash for military labor, to long-term arrangements that
involved accompanying their employer to new assignments or even into
retirement. Presumably long-term arrangements involved more than a
simple economic transaction: feelings of personal loyalty, an identification
with other men serving under the patron, and perhaps the adoption of fic-
tive kinship or oaths of brotherhood. Such behaviors no doubt also shaped
the identity of those soldiers serving in regular garrison forces.
In addition to (a) economic changes and (b) supply and demand in the
labor market, ideological or political considerations also shaped military
labor relations during the Ming. More specifically, the Ming state considered
the hereditary military household system and imperial garrisons essential
to the maintenance of the empire. The great physical size, geographic
variation, ethnic complexity, and economic diversity of China generated
considerable centrifugal force. Given such centrifugal pressure, the Ming
state went to considerable lengths to ensure the viability of the dynasty by
strengthening the centre. Thorough control of the military and the many
functions built into the hereditary military household system were essential
to such efforts.
The Ming founder used various methods to prevent his generals from
gaining sufficient power to challenge the court. Generals were assigned
command of garrison units for specific campaigns. Once the fighting was
concluded, the generals were to be recalled to the capital or to their positions
on the border. 109 The founder divided the highest level of military command
into five military commissions to prevent an undue concentration of power
in the hands of single man or institution. He also killed many of his leading
generals during sanguinary purges that left tens of thousands dead.
The hereditary garrison system, too, was a critical instrument of central
control. Ultimate responsibility for household registration of military
families was in the hands of the central government. The court dispatched
officials to local garrisons to track down or replace deserting (or deceased)
soldiers. Enormous swathes of territory were turned over to the garrisons
108 Nimick, "Ch'i Chi-kuang and I-wu County", p. 24.
109 The prominent official He Qiaoxin considered this as one of the founder's six greatest
accomplishments as a ruler ("Di wang gong de", in He, He Wen su gong wen ji, 2.24a, 1694 edn;
reprinted in Taibei: Weiwen tushu chubanshe, 1976, 1, p. 109).
MILITARY LABOR IN CHINA, C. 1500
79
for farming. The central government retained control over the lands, the
men who farmed them, their harvests, and granaries. The central govern-
ment exiled criminals to serve as soldiers in garrisons, especially along the
borders. During the early decades of the dynasty, the garrison system was
the mechanism through which the central government forcibly relocated
hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children from one part of the
empire to others (as part of economic reconstruction). Further, it was the
tool through which the court tried to keep them there on a permanent basis.
When the state first approved measures to hire soldiers from within and
beyond hereditary military households, it initially tried to limit the pool
to men who could demonstrate evidence of proper household registration. 110
Thus, although officials in the central government were fully aware of the
monetization of parts of the economy, the flexibility of the military labor
market, and the viability of hiring soldiers to defend the dynasty, there is
little evidence that abolition of the hereditary military household system
or the imperial garrisons was ever given serious consideration. In the case
of the Ming dynasty, maintenance of the hereditary military household
system was integral to imperial power and legitimacy. This involved a
measure of irony. The Ming court had adopted the hereditary military
household system from the Mongol Yuan dynasty, a regime that the early
Ming emperors spent considerable time decrying as abusive, corrupt, and
fundamentally incompatible with the enduring values and customs of
Chinese civilization.
Thus, several factors shaped the particular configuration of military
labor relations under the Ming. Insofar as dynastic legitimacy became
entwined with strong control over military resources and the Ming wished
to be considered a successor to the Yuan, the hereditary military household
system and its vast array of garrisons owed much to ideological factors. 111
One might argue that the Ming state's use of Mongol, Jurchen, Yao, and
other non-Chinese warriors could be explained in similar terms. The initial
emergence of hired soldiers in the fifteenth century and more especially
their proliferation during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries must be
understood in the wider context of socioeconomic changes transforming
China. The growing, if still uneven, use of silver as a medium of exchange,
no Li Du (Mingdai huangquan zhengzhiyanjiu, pp. 152-226) stresses the central government's
high level of control. Li notes the initial efforts to recruit only from among properly registered
men in "Mingdai mubingzhi jianlun", p. 66.
111 For the Ming court as a successor to the Yuan, see Robinson, "The Ming Imperial Family
and the Yuan Legacy".
80
DAVID M. ROBINSON
the monetization of labor and material obligations to the state, and the
decline of the hereditary occupation household system all contributed to
conditions favoring hired soldiers. Finally, the large and flexible military
labor market must be mentioned. It arose as a result of the socioeconomic
conditions enumerated above, a steadily growing population (including
the population of young, often single men), diversified economic strategies
pursued by individual families and lineages, and competition for military
labor by the imperial state, local authorities, private elites, and other groups
ranging from mutual-aid societies among farmers, men of force, bandits,
pirates, and rebels. This competition for military labor almost certainly
contributed to its commodification.
From the mamluks to the mansabdars
A social history of military service in South Asia, c. 1500 to
c. 1650 1
Kaushik Roy
Introduction
By the first decade of the sixteenth century, the Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526),
the dominant power in north India, was breaking up. Several autonomous
states emerged to challenge the political supremacy of the Delhi Sultanate
in the Ganga-Jamuna doab (the fertile tract of land between the rivers
Ganga and Jamuna in north India). Deccan (the region between the rivers
Godavari and Krishna) and south India had become independent of the
Delhi Sultanate's control earlier during the mid-fourteenth century. The
invasion of India by the Turkish warlord Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur
in 1526 resulted in the replacement of the Lodi dynasty ruling the Delhi
Sultanate with the Mogul Empire. The Moguls (Mughals; the nineteenth-
century British officials and historians called them Moghuls) referred to
themselves as Chagatai Turks or Timurids even though their family links
with the Chagatai branch of the Chingizids were weak. The Moguls claimed
that from their father's side they descended from Amir Timur and from their
mother's side from the Chagatai Mongol branch. The newly born Mogul
Empire was overthrown in 1540 by the Afghan warlord from east India
named Sher Shah Suri. Babur's son Humayun staged a comeback in 1555.
The "real" founder of the Mogul Empire was indeed Akbar (Padshah, i.e.
emperor, from 1556 to 1605). Akbar put an end to the political chaos in north
India by subduing the Afghans and the Rajputs. Further, he reorganized the
administration. By the time of Akbar's death in 1605, the Mogul Empire had
established a stable administrative machinery in north and central India
and was in the process of moving slowly into Deccan. Until the fourteenth
century, the dominant mode of military recruitment in India was the
mamluk system. The mamluks were slave soldiers of the Muslim world.
However, by the end of the sixteenth century, due to Akbari reorganization,
a sort of quasi-mercenary-cum-quasi-professional military employment
1 lam indebted to Suhrita and Prof. Erik-Jan Ziircher for their comments on an earlier version
of this paper.
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KAUSHIK ROY
known as the mansabdari system became dominant. The beginning of the
seventeenth century witnessed the gradual expansion of Mogul power into
Deccan under Akbar's son and grandson, named Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and
Shahjahan (r. 1628-1658) respectively. They continued to operate within the
administrative fabric established by their illustrious predecessor. By the
mid-seventeenth century, two contradictory processes were unfolding in
the subcontinent. While the Mogul Empire under the dynamic leadership
of Emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707) was poised for expansion, simultaneously
the administrative institutions established by Akbar were slowly becoming
dysfunctional. This was partly because the Mogul economy was in the grip
of what is known as the "agrarian crisis" 2 and partly due to the new forms
of warfare introduced by the Marathas and the Persians.
Research design
The focus in this chapter is on the combatants of the Mogul army. I will show
how the mamluk system became dominant and explain the reasons which
led to its demise in South Asia. The various factors that resulted in the transi-
tion to the mansabdari system and the existence of other mini-systems
will be laid out. Since the Mogul army was not frozen in time but evolved
over two centuries, the transition to different forms of military labour is
portrayed chronologically. This chapter combines original research with a
synthesis of the existing materials and has a comparative focus. I will com-
pare the mamluk and mansabdari systems alongside other forms of military
profession which were in vogue in the subcontinent between 1500 and 1650.
2 The agrarian crisis was an amalgam of structural and managerial factors. Long-term
agricultural decline, price rises, etc. resulted in a decrease in income from jagirs (agricultural
land assigned to the Mogul officials) from the late seventeenth century onwards. The deficit
budget of the Mogul central government - due to continuous warfare in Deccan against the
Marathas as well as to the rising cost of warfare - forced Aurangzeb to requisition jagirs from
the Mogul nobles (officials), which were then transferred into the khalisa (land under direct
crown management). In addition, newly conquered land was not assigned as jagirs among
the nobility but put under khalisa. Aurangzeb hoped, through this measure, that the central
government would be able to exercise greater financial control over the agrarian economy. A
lack of jagirs for assignment to the Mogul nobles caused be-jagiri or a paibaqi crisis among the
Mogul nobility. This scenario resulted in increasing factional fighting among the nobility trying
to acquire the available jagirs in the Mogul Empire. After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the
powerful nobles, in a bid to get hold of the jagirs, became independent of the Mogul centre and
carved out semi-autonomous principalities for themselves and their followers. In the long run
this resulted in the dismemberment of the Mogul Empire. See Habib, The Agrarian System of
Mughal India; and Chandra, Parties and Politics at the Mughal Court.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
83
This is necessary because both the mamluk and the mansabdari systems
emerged in interaction with various local/regional forms of military labour
service in medieval South Asia. Again the timeline is not rigid because, to
explain the rise and fall of the various forms of military recruitment at
different times, we have to consider the years both before 1500 and after
1650. In order to assess the uniqueness or lack thereof as regards the social
history of South Asian military labourers, some comparisons will be made
with the military systems that were operational in other parts of the world.
Let us now explore the existing modern works on the subject.
Historiography of military labour history of medieval South Asia
Military history is neglected in the South Asian academic field due to the
dominance of Marxism and, more recently, post-modernism. We have a few
books on the military history of medieval India. The earliest modern work
on the Mogul army is by the British historian of colonial India, William
Irvine. He argues that Indian "racial inferiority" resulted in continuous
treachery, infighting, and backbiting, and that this racial/cultural trait
prevented the Moguls from constructing a bureaucratic professional stand-
ing army capable of waging decisive battles and sieges. 3 The latest work on
the Mogul army by a Dutch historian, Jos Gommans, asserts that the Mogul
army was not geared for decisive confrontations aimed at destroying the
enemy. Rather, the Mogul grand strategy was to absorb potential enemies
within the loose structure of the Mogul Empire. The Mogul army functioned
as an instrument to frighten, coerce, and deter enemies. 4
We have a crop of biographies of medieval warlords, rulers, and nobles,
which deal with their administrative and military activities. The decline of
the Delhi Sultanate started under Sultan Firoz Shah Tughluq. R.C. Jauhri's
biography of Firoz is still useful. 5 The best biography of Babur for political
and military affairs remains that by the British historian Stanley Lane-Poole,
who wrote in the last year of the nineteenth century. 6 The most recent biog-
raphy of Babur by Stephen F. Dale concentrates mostly on political culture. 7
The standard biography of Akbar remains the one written by Vincent Smith,
3 Irvine, The Army of the Indian Moghuls.
4 Gommans, Mughal Warfare.
5 Jauhri, Firoz Tughluq.
6 Lane-Poole, The Emperor Babar.
7 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises.
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KAUSHIK ROY
a British civil servant in colonial India. 8 The best biographer of Aurangzeb,
the last great Mogul, is Jadunath Sarkar. 9 On Sher Shah Suri, the founder of
the short-lived Afghan Suri Sultanate, there are two good biographies. 10 As
regards the biographies of the warlords, one example is Radhey Shyam's
biography of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate's slave-turned-warlord, Malik
Ambar, who later fought against the Moguls." We have a good biography
of Mir Jumla, the famous noble of Aurangzeb. 12 Most of these biographies
follow the "history-from-the-top-down" approach and give detailed narrative
accounts of the "great men". However, some data regarding the social aspects
of military employments can be gathered from these biographies.
The principal debate in the field is about weak states and flower/ritual
warfare 13 versus strong states, standing armies, and decisive battles. Most
modern non-Indian scholars (Dirk Kolff, Gommans, Andre Wink, Doug-
las Streusand, Burton Stein, Lome Adamson, Stephen Peter Rosen, etc.)
argue that the Mogul state was a shadowy structure. The imperial fabric
comprised innumerable semi-autonomous principalities held together by
the personality of the emperor and the pomp and splendour of the Mogul
durbar (court). The emperor did not enjoy a monopoly of violence in the
public sphere. The Moguls lacked a drilled and disciplined standing army for
crushing opponents on the battlefields. Treachery, diplomacy, bribery, and a
show of force resulted in the absorption and assimilation of enemies. 14 What
Irvine has categorized as Indian racial inferiority had been transformed
as the unique culture of the "Orientals" in the paradigm of these modern
scholars.
In contrast, John F. Richards 15 and many of the Indian Muslim historians
who are influenced by Marxism and belong to a group which can be labelled
the Aligarh School, assert that the Mogul Empire was a centralized agrarian
8 Smith, Akbar.
9 Sarkar wrote a five-volume biography of Aurangzeb, and an abridged version in one volume
was later published (A Short History of Aurangzib).
10 Aquil, Sufism, Culture, and Politics; Matta, Sher Shah Suri.
n Shyam, Life and Times of Malik Ambar.
12 Sarkar, The Life of Mir fumla.
13 Flower/ritual warfare means indecisive skirmishing, pillaging, and plundering, etc. The
objective of such warfare is not destruction of the enemy but to cause harm so that the defeated
enemy, with its militia, could be co-opted into the victor's camp.
14 Adamson, "The Mughal Armies"; Gommans, Mughal Warfare; Streusand, The Formation
of the Mughal Empire;Wink, Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-lslamic World, II, The Slave Kings
and the Islamic Conquest; Rosen, Societies and Military Power; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, "A
Millennium of Stateless Indian History?"
15 Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. xv.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
85
bureaucratic polity. The Aligarh School turns the limelight on the agrarian
economy; focusing on the revenue documents, they argue that the Moguls'
ability to claim about 50 per cent of the gross produce from the land proves
that they had a strong presence at the regional/local level. The sucking of
economic surplus from the countryside was aided by the military supremacy
of the Moguls, exemplified by the use of cavalry and gunpowder weapons. 16
However, M. Athar Ali notes that, unlike the Tudor state, the Mogul state
lacked the capability and the intention to legislate. 17 Probably the nature
of the Mogul state and Mogul warfare lies somewhere in between the two
extreme viewpoints discussed above. Now, let us review the primary sources
which are our raw materials for piecing together the social history of the
various forms of military employment in Mogul South Asia.
Review of the primary sources
Most of the sources generated by the Mogul chroniclers are in Persian.
Very few people in the world can read Persian calligraphy of the medieval
manuscripts which are scattered in the various museums and libraries of the
world. Luckily most of these works have been translated into English. Various
regional courts in the Mogul Empire generated chronicles and poems in ver-
nacular languages such as Hindi, Rajasthani, Marathi (modi script), Punjabi
(Gurmukhi script), and Bengali (charjapada). These scripts vary from the
present-day scripts, and not all the vernacular sources have been translated.
For reconstructing the cultural ethos of the Rajputs, who fought the Islamic
armies and at times also joined them, Prithvirajvijayamahakavya is of some
help. This poem, composed by Jayanak, comprises 1,067 sbkas (stanzas). 18
Somadeva Bhatta's collection of poems, known as Kathasaritsagara, 19 com-
posed around 500 CE, offers a glimpse of the warrior ethos of the Hindu
mercenaries. In this regard, the various Sanskrit nitisastras (legal literature
such as Arthasastra, Nitiprakasika, Sukraniti) are of some use.
One of the principal sources for our purposes is the memoir of the first
Mogul emperor, Babur. Babur wrote his autobiography in Turkish with the
title Tuzuk-i-Baburi, which was translated into Persian as Babur-Nama. A.S.
16 Habib, Akbar and His India; Ali, Mughal India;Hasan, Religion, State, and Society in Medieval
India.
17 Ali, "Political Structures of the Islamic Orient in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries",
P- 95-
18 Subsequent translations are by the author.
19 All translations are by the author.
86
KAUSHIK ROY
Beveridge translated it into English in two volumes. While the first volume
deals with Babur's adventures in Central Asia, the second volume narrates
Babur's activities in Hindustan (north India). Babur's great-grandson Jahan-
gir (r. 1605-1628) also wrote an autobiography. 20 An intimate biographical
account of Babur's son Humayun is available in a narrative written by the
latter's domestic attendant, Jouher. 21 The Maathir-ul-Umara, a collective
biography of 730 Mogul nobles by Nawab Samsam-ud-Daulah Shah Nawaz
Khan and written between 1768 and 1780, is an important source. This work
has been translated by H. Beveridge into English into two volumes. 22 Shah
Nawaz Khan's objective is to give "an account, in alphabetical order, of the
lives of the great amirs and exalted nobles - some of whom had, at the time
of their glory, by dint of fortune and good conduct, been the authors of great
deeds [...] while others had, by the wind of their arrogance and presumption,
heaped up final ruin for themselves". 23 In Akbar's reign, the highest rank
to which an amir (noble) could aspire was that of 5,000 sawars, meaning
that he was supposed to maintain 5,000 cavalry. However, a few people
attained the rank of 7,000 sawars. These higher ranks were held mostly
by the royal princes. Under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, mansabdars 24 of
3,000 possessed their own drums and flags. A noble holding the rank of 500
was of considerable importance. Hence, Shah Nawaz Khan writes, he has
included the biographies of nobles who held the mansab of the rank of 500
and upwards. 25 For details of Akbar's reign, the best source is Akbar-Nama
by Akbar's courtier Abul Fazl. 26 Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari is a statistical and
ethnographic study of the Mogul Empire. For Shah Jahan's reign, we have
Inayat Khan's Shah Jahan Nama. 27 For abridged translations of the various
medieval Persian works dealing with India, the eight volumes of H.M. Elliot
and John Dawson's History of India remain useful. 28
The problem with the Persian sources is that they were written by the
elites for the elites, i.e. mostly the relatives of mansabdars for the mansab-
20 The Jahangirnama.
21 The Tezkereh al Vakiat.
22 The Maathir-ul-Umara. See also I, p. 32.
23 Ibid., I, p. 7.
24 A Mogul official who held a mansab (rank) in lieu of jagirs was known as a mansabdar. In
accordance with his rank, he had to maintain a military contingent, which he did out of the
revenues of the jagirs assigned to him.
25 The Maathir-ul- Umara, I, p. 8.
26 The Akbar-Nama was first completed in 1596.
27 Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan, ed. by Begley and Desai.
28 The History of India as told by its own Historians.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
87
dars. 29 The court chroniclers and the nobles who wrote while enjoying the
patronage of the rulers concentrated mostly on the doings of the durbar
and not on those lower placed. Hence, we can recreate the picture about the
officer corps (especially the senior ranks) of the Mogul army but we know
very little about the rank and file. And the common soldiers have left us with
no written materials. Let us now look at the forms of military employment
which were in vogue in the subcontinent when the Moguls arrived.
The rise and fall of the mamluk system, c. 1200-1399
The Delhi Sultanate depended on irregular troops (mercenaries and retain-
ers of the tributary chieftains) and regular soldiers (ghulams, i.e., slaves plus
soldiers raised and maintained by the iqtadars)? 0 The irregular troops were
assembled during campaigns and other emergencies (civil wars, invasion by
foreign powers, etc.) and the regular troops were maintained throughout
the year as a sort of standing army.
The early rulers of the Delhi Sultanate, such as Muhammad Ghori,
Qutub-ud-din Aibak and Iltutmish (or Altamash, sultan from 1211 to 1236),
were influenced by the ghulam/mamluk system which was prevalent in
the Middle East. For inspiration and a model to follow, these three sultans
looked at the political and military system prevalent in the Caliphate and
in the other Muslim polities of the Middle East. The mamluk institution
first came into existence during the first half of the ninth century, under
the Abbasid Caliphate. 31 Peter Jackson writes that by the eleventh century
Turkish slave regiments were prevalent in the polities of Transoxiana,
Turkestan, Persia (Iran), and the Near East. 32 The shock troops and the
core of the Delhi Sultanate's army comprised mounted Turkish ghulams.
Many of the sultans, such as Aibak, Iltutmish, Balban (r. 1266-1287), and
so forth, started their careers as ghulams. Firoz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351-1388)
maintained 180,000 slaves, of whom 40,000 served in the army. Some slaves
29 Abul Fazl himself was a mansabdar holding the rank of 4,000: The History of India, Elliot
and Dawson, VI, Akbar-Nama of Abul Fazl, p. 2.
30 An iqtadarwas the holder of an iqta (a piece of land). The revenue of the iqta went to support
the cavalry force of the iqtadar.
31 Jackson, "The Mamluk Institution in Early Muslim India", p. 340.
32 Jackson, "Turkish Slaves on Islam's Indian Frontier", pp. 64-65.
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specialized in archery, others in swordsmanship, and so on. The slaves were
occasionally paid in cash, but usually through jagirs. 33
Next in importance were the contingents of the iqtadars. The nobles were
granted land, i.e., iqtas (the equivalent of jagirs), for maintaining cavalry
troopers. The iqtadars (holder of iqtas) paid the soldiers under their com-
mand out of the revenues collected from their iqtas. 34 Initially, the iqtas were
granted not to the Hindu chieftains but to the Turkish nobles. The iqtadars
and their soldiers (who were their kinsmen) 35 joined military service for
material gain. However, it would be wrong to categorize them as mercenar-
ies, because their military employment depended on the political fortunes
of the sultan. If a particular sultan was overthrown, his favourite iqtadars
were replaced by nobles who supported the cause of the victor. The iqtadari
system was not professional because the iqtas were given for life; when the
regular soldiers grew old, they remained in the ranks, and after their death
their male relations inherited their posts. 36 The iqta system was a technique
of rewarding the free-born Turkish nobles who constituted the support
base of the Delhi sultans. In the absence of a bureaucracy, the nobles were
installed as iqtadars directly into the countryside, where their function was
to collect any agricultural surplus. With the passage of time, especially under
the Khaljis and the Lodis, iqtas were granted to the non-Turkish Muslims
for broadening the support base of the Delhi Sultanate. To an extent, the
iqtas were somewhat equivalent to timars and the iqtadari cavaliers were
somewhat similar to timariots (sipahis) of the Ottoman Army. 37
However, shifts in the international balance of power, as well as the
enormous demographic resources of the subcontinent, encouraged the Delhi
Sultanate to change the ethnic composition of the ghulams and to depend on
the free-floating armed mercenaries of Hindustan. Initially, the Delhi Sul-
tanate relied on Turkish slaves to fill the ghulam units. The Mongol invasions
of Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran resulted in the Delhi Sultanate being
completely cut off from the manpower supplies of the extra-Indian Islamic
world. The cessation of the flow of Turkish and Afghan manpower forced the
Delhi sultans to enslave Hindu boys and convert them to Islam; they were
then inducted into the ranks of ghulams. This process was somewhat similar
to the Ottoman practice of capturing young Christian boys in the Balkans
33 Jauhri, Firoz Tughluq, pp. 126-128; Jackson, "The Mamluk Institution in Early Muslim India",
PP- 341, 357-
34 Jauhri, Firoz Tughluq, pp. 86, 118.
35 Hasan, "Aspects of State and Religion in Medieval India", p. 65.
36 Jauhri, Firoz Tughluq, p. 120.
37 Aksan, "Ottoman War and Warfare", p. 150.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
89
who were, after their forcible conversion into Islam, inducted as janissaries.
The Delhi Sultanate was faced simultaneously with Mongol challenges in
Sind and Punjab; 38 within South Asia, the Rajput chieftains started to nibble
away at the internal frontiers of the Sultanate. 39 One way to maintain and
expand the size of the army was to hire indigenous mercenaries as well as
to utilize the forces of the defeated chiefs. The free-floating mercenaries
had their own horses, armour, and equipment. They were paid in cash and
they also had a right to the loot taken from the defeated enemies. Unlike the
ghulams and the iqtadari soldiers, the mercenaries were employed either
for a single season only or during emergencies.
In 1353, when Firoz Tughluq marched from Delhi towards Bengal with
70,000 soldiers, many Hindu chieftains who had stopped paying tribute
joined him with their war bands. 40 These chieftains with their warriors
(who belonged to the same religion and mobilized through the territorial
clan network) were forced to join the sultanate's expeditionary armies and
were not remunerated in any way. It was a sort of begari (forced unpaid
labour) and could be categorized as a case of an ethnic tributary form of
military employment.
During the 1365 Thatta (Sind) campaign, Firoz, as well as depending on
the ghulams and iqtadari troops, also recruited the free-floating mercenar-
ies. They were paid 40 per cent of their salaries in advance. After Firoz was
repulsed in Sind, he prepared another army for a second campaign against
Sind during 1366-1367. In addition to mobilizing the soldiers of the iqtadars,
Firoz hired mercenaries. The mercenaries were paid three-fifths of their
salaries in advance so that they could equip themselves. The personnel of
the standing army during this campaign also received payment in cash.
This was possible as there were various types of gold and silver coins in
circulation in Firoz's time. In fact, the whole revenue of Gujarat, which
amounted to 20 million tankas (coins) was used in paying the army. To
prevent desertion of the troops during the second Sind campaign, sentinels
were appointed. Deserters were disgraced publicly if caught. 41 Timur's
invasion of India during 1398-1399 with 84,000 cavalry dealt a deathblow
to the Delhi Sultanate. 42 Further, it encouraged many other Central Asian
adventurers such as Babur to invade the weakening Delhi Sultanate.
38 Jackson, "The Mongols and the Delhi Sultanate in the Reign of Muhammad Tughluq".
39 Habibullah, The Foundation of Muslim Rule in India.
40 Jauhri, Firoz Tughluq, pp. 46-47.
41 Ibid., pp. 81, 84-85, 118, 131.
42 The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 244.
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The armies of the early Moguls and their opponents, 1494-1556
In 1494, Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur inherited the Kingdom of Fer-
ghana from his father Omar Shaikh, son of Abu Shaikh, the great-grandson
of Timur. 43 Babur relied on different types of military labour. During the
Battle of Sar-i-Pul, fought in 1501 with the Uzbek chief Shaibani Khan,
Babur deployed household troops. 44 Virginia Aksan writes that the Otto-
man sultan's court was organized as a household and that the state was
regarded as patrimony. The household comprised the sultan's army and
his military headquarters. 45 The household troops 46 constituted the core
group of Babur's army. They provided the "braves", the crack soldiers who
carried out daredevil manoeuvres on the battlefield. They joined Babur's
side due to family and clan connections. And, being attached to Babur by
personal relations, unlike the tribal mercenaries, they did not change sides
in accordance with the fluctuating political circumstances. By profession,
they were warriors and fought bravely for Babur, like a band of brothers.
And they got the best rewards after a successful campaign. In 1497, Babur
occupied Samarkhand. In 1498-1499, Babur commanded some 2,000 Mongol
soldiers from one tribe. He said that these soldiers had come to him from
his mother's side. Babur's mother was the daughter of Yunus Khan, who
was a distant descendant of the Mongol leader Chingiz Khan. 47 The Mongol
horse archers carried outflank attacks (known as taulqama charges), which
required special skills. They played an important role in routing the Lodi
forces at the First Battle of Panipat (21 April 1526). 48
Babur mentions that the Mongol settlers in Central Asia were organized
in various tribes. Many Mongol tribes who had no blood relation to Babur
joined him. Each Mongol tribe at that time comprised 3,000-4,000 families.
Most of these tribes were mobile but some had a particular territorial desig-
nation. In 1504-1505, Rusta-Hazara, a Mongol tribe from Badakshan, joined
Babur. At different times, several tribal leaders with their retainers joined
Babur in search of loot and plunder. Babur had not defeated these tribal
chieftains and forced them to join his army with their retainers; instead, the
43 Lane-Poole, The Emperor Babar, p. 17.
44 Babur-Nama, I, pp. 138-139.
45 Aksan, "Ottoman War and Warfare", p. 150.
46 Abul Fazl uses the term diwanian to designate the household troops who were considered
the most loyal and courageous: The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 263-264.
47 Babur-Nama, I, pp. 19, 21, 105, 164. Beveridge uses the term "Mughals" to designate the
descendants of Chingiz Khan who were settled in Central Asia.
48 Ibid., II, pp. 472-473.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
91
soldiers belonging to a particular tribe fought under their tribal leader, who
acknowledged the supremacy of Babur. The tribal chiefs changed sides in
accordance with the fortunes of war. They joined a successful charismatic
warlord who provided them with loot and plunder. For example, in 1504,
after the defeat of Wali (a brother of Khusrau Shah) by Shaibani Khan, the
former joined Babur with his Mongol kinsmen. 49 It was a case of an ethnic
(reciprocal) mercenary sort of military employment. However, at certain
junctures, the Mongol tribes proved unreliable. Their loyalty to Babur was
conditional and pragmatic. In general, the Mongol tribes were more willing
to serve a Chingizid prince rather than a Timurid mirza (royal prince) such
as Babur. 50 While wandering in Central Asia, Babur mentioned that some
rulers maintained ghulams, 51 though he himself never utilized them. The
army of about 10,000-12,000 men with which Babur attacked the Delhi
Sultanate comprised household troops, various Mongol and Turkish tribes,
and a few Ottoman mercenaries. Abul Fazl uses the terms "Turks" and
"Tajiks" to describe the ethnic composition of Babur's force. 52
Babur's opponent at the First Battle of Panipat, Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (r.
1517-1526) depended on the indigenous mercenaries. Ibrahim Lodi, being an
Afghan, preferred Afghan soldiers. Abul Fazl deliberately inflates the size
of Ibrahim's army to highlight the courage of the Mogul soldiers and the
leadership ability of Babur. Fazl claimed that Ibrahim commanded 100,000
cavalry and 1,000 elephants. When Timur invaded India, the Delhi Sultanate
commanded a bigger region than the area controlled by Ibrahim. However,
the Sultanate could only scrape up 10,000 cavalry and 120 elephants to
oppose Timur. 53
After being victorious at First Panipat, many Afghan chieftains in India
(who were either semi-autonomous or in Lodi service) joined Babur as
tributaries with their retainers (some of the bands numbering up to 3,000-
4,000 men each). 54 In many cases, they were forced to join Babur after being
defeated in battle. Again, many important chieftains who submitted to
Babur were rewarded with land grants. Fath Khan Sherwani was one of
Ibrahim Lodi's nobles. When Fath Khan submitted to Babur, the former was
given 1 crore 6 lakhs (1 lakh is 100,000; 1 crore is 100 lakhs or 10 million) as a
49 Ibid., I, pp. 188-189, 192, 196, 253.
50 Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises, pp. 187-246.
51 Babur-Nama, I, p. 102.
52 The Akbar-Nama,\, p. 240.
53 Hasan, "Aspects of State and Religion in Medieval India", p. 68; The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 241,
243-245-
54 Lane-Poole, The Emperor Babar, p. 172.
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KAUSHIK ROY
reward, and his son Mahmud Khan was taken in the Mogul army. 55 Shaikh
Guhran entered Babur's service with 3,000 bowmen from the Ganga-Jamuna
doab. Firuz Khan, an Afghan noble of the Lodis who submitted to Babur,
received a jagir worth one crore tankas in Jaunpur, and Mahmud Khan
received a jagir worth 90 lakhs in Ghazipur. 5 * 5
However, not all the Afghan chiefs submitted to Babur. Many of them
allied with Rajput chieftain Rana Sangram Singh (also known as Rana
Sangha), the ruler of Chitor (Udaipur) and confronted the Moguls at the
Battle of Khanwa (16 March 1527). The combined Rajput-Afghan force, writes
Abul Fazl, numbered 201,000 cavalry. 57 Superior firepower and horse archery
again gave victory to the Moguls.
After the death of Babur (26 December 1530), his eldest son Humayun
ascended the Mogul throne. Gujarat and east India were the two trouble spots
for Humayun. In 1533, Bahadur Shah, the sultan of Gujarat, depended on 6,000
Abyssinian volunteers. Some of Bahadur Shah's infantry were mercenaries
from the Bhil and Koli tribes. 58 Bahadur Shah provided 20 crore of Gujarati
coins to one of his nobles, Tatar Khan, who with this money hired 40,000
Afghan mercenary cavalry. 59 Some Muslims of Gujarat also joined his artillery
branch as mercenaries. Bahadur Shah also relied on some tributary Rajput
chieftains who joined his standard with their cavalry retainers. 60 Humayun
moved into Gujarat with 30,000 cavalry. By 1535, Gujaratwas conquered. 61 In
1531, Humayun moved into east India and defeated several Afghan chieftains.
They were ordered to join the Mogul service with their retainers. 62 However,
such tributary soldiers proved disloyal, deserting and joining Farid (who
became Sher Khan and then Sher Shah) who challenged Humayun.
Sher Shah was from the Afghan tribe of Sur. His grandfather was a horse
merchant in Agra. 63 Sher recruited Afghans from Bihar, and many Rajput
chieftains with their clansmen also joined his banner. While the Rajputs in
his army were mercenaries, the Afghans were mobilized through tribal/clan
networks. Sher called the Afghan qaum (community) to mobilize against
55 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 256-257.
56 Ibid., I, p. 253.
57 Ibid., I, pp. 260-261. Fazl no doubt gives an exaggerated figure of the enemy force, as main-
taining such a large force was logistically impossible.
58 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, p. 7; The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 309.
59 The History of India, Elliot and Dawson, VI, Akbar-Nama, pp. 11-12.
60 Ibid., p. 14.
61 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 306-307.
62 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, p. 3.
63 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 326-327.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
93
the alien Moguls. 64 Before fighting Humayun, Sher conscripted the Afghans
of Bihar to join his army. 65 This was a rare case of conscription in Indian
history. For the Afghans in Sher's army, it was a case of ethnic conscription.
Some of Sher's officers were ghulams but they were in a minority. By 1540,
Sher commanded 150,000 cavalry and 25,000 foot soldiers. 66
According to one estimate, in 1540, Humayun mobilized 90,000 cavalry
against Sher Shah. 67 When Humayun fought Sher in the two battles of
Chausa (27 June 1539) and Kanauj (17 May 1540), the household troops of
Babur did not prove loyal to Humayun. Many household troops joined
Humayun's half-brothers, Kamran in particular. Kamran provided only
3,000 of his 20,000 cavalry to Humayun. 68 Babur's nobles were also divided
as regards their loyalty to Humayun. 69 After being defeated by Sher, Hum-
ayun reached Persia through Sind, which was under the Safavid Dynasty.
During 1544, with the help of 14,000 Persian cavalry, Humayun was able to
capture Kandahar, which was then handed over to a Persian garrison. In
1545, Humayun recaptured Kandahar from the Persians in a surprise attack
with the aid of mercenary Afghan soldiers. In 1551, Humayun captured
Kabul from his brother Mirza Kamran. 70 In 1553, Humayun moved towards
Peshawar. At that time, several Uzbek chiefs joined his standard. There is
no evidence of any Uzbek tribes joining Babur. Some of the Uzbeks served
Humayun's son Akbar. 71 Sher Shah died on 23 May 1545 and was succeeded
by his son Islam Shah. On his death in 1553, the Suri Empire broke up into
four parts. In 1554, Humayun invaded India and defeated the Afghan ruler
of Punjab Sikander Suri at Sirhind. 72 The prospect of plunder attracted
many mercenaries from Central Asia to Humayun's standard. They were
employed as temporary volunteers. Jouher writes:
About this time nearly 500 Moghul soldiers came from beyond the
river Oxus to seek for employment; but as very few of them were
armed, the general consulted me what he should do with them; I said,
64 Aquil, Sufism, Culture, andPolitics, pp. 65-66, 112.
65 Matta, Sher Shah Suri, p. 89.
66 Aquil, Sufism, Culture, andPolitics, p. 108; The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 615.
67 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, p. 20.
68 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 346, 348.
69 Hasan, "New Light on the Relations of the Early Mughal Rulers with Their Nobility",
pp. 114-115.
70 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, pp. 77, 80-82.
71 Ibid., p. 108; The Akbar Nama, II, pp. 48, 54.
72 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, pp. 113-115; Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 12.
94
KAUSHIK ROY
"give each of them a bow and a quiver of arrows, and advance them a
small sum of money to support them for a month, by which time the
business with the Afghans will be settled". He took my advice, and
having advanced the money to the Moghuls, they joined the army as
volunteers. 73
When Humayun recaptured the Mogul throne, Persian Shias began joining
the Mogul service in large numbers. 74
After Humayun's death on 21 January 1556, Akbar ascended the Mogul
throne at Kalanaur in Punjab. 75 A Hindu general of the Suri dynasty named
Hemu declared his independence and captured Delhi. Abul Fazl notes that
Hemu's tribe, the Dhusar, was engaged in making and selling saltpetre in
Gurgaon district. 76 Hemu's army numbered 50,000 cavalry, comprising Af-
ghans, Rajputs, and some Brahman mercenaries. Some of the Rajputs were
from the Jhansi district of north India. Most of the senior officers of Hemu's
army were his relatives from the Brahman caste. Hemu won over the Afghan
chiefs by distributing land grants and treasure. 77 At Panipat, Hemu deployed
30,000 cavalry. The Mogul army, 10,000 strong, under the nominal leadership
of Akbar but actually under the noble Bairam Khan (a Turk), advanced from
Kalanaur in Punjab to confront Hemu, again at the historical field of Panipat. 78
The emergence of the mansabdari system, 1556-1650
After achieving victory in the Second Battle of Panipat (5 November 1556),
Akbar faced challenges from some of the Muslim nobles of Humayun as well
as from the Afghans of east India. Unlike Babur, under Akbar the base of the
Mogul Empire was no longer Afghanistan, but north India proper. So, unlike
Babur and Humayun, Akbar could not tap the Turkish tribes settled around
the Oxus River. Moreover, by this time, the Uzbek Khanate, the sworn enemy
of the Mogul Empire, had been resurrected in Central Asia. Akbar realized
that he needed to broaden the basis of his rule by integrating the Hindu
chieftains within his regime, and one way to ensure loyalty among the various
73 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, p. 118. Here "Moghul" refers to Mongols.
74 Khan, "Akbar's Personality Traits and World Outlook", p. 82.
75 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, pp. 120-121.
76 The Akbar- Nama, I, p. 617.
77 Ibid., II, pp. 47-48, 59; Bhargava, Hemu and His Times; see esp. pp. 13, 90, 100. Richards claims
that Hemu was of the Vaisya (trader) caste: Mughal Empire, p. 13.
78 The Akbar-Nama, II, pp. 59-61.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
95
groups of Muslim nobles and Hindu chieftains was to establish a personalized
and semi-bureaucratic relationship with them. Such a relationship, reasoned
Akbar, would generate a more cohesive and loyal force than would depend-
ence on the tribal retainers. By trial and error, Akbar evolved the mansabdari
system. The mansabdars of Akbar comprised Persians, Turanis, Muslims born
in India, and the Rajput chieftains. 79 Many Turani and Afghan chieftains
realized that the institution of the mansabdari system was an attempt to curb
their independence, so they revolted. However, Akbar was able to quash the
rebellions with the aid of his loyal mansabdars. One example will suffice.
In 1572, the mirzas in collusion with the Afghan chieftains revolted against
Akbar. The forces under the mirzas comprised Abyssinians, and men from
Badakshan and Transoxiana. The rebellion was crushed in 1573. 80
Mansab technically meant rank, and the holder of the mansab was
known as mansabdar (an imperial official) and was granted a jagir. The
lowest-ranking mansabdar commanded 10 cavalry and the highest-ranking
mansabdar 10,000. In Akbar's time, most of the mansabdars above the
rank of 5,000 were his sons. 81 Under Akbar's successor, a mansabdar held
two ranks: zat and sawar ranks. The zat rank denoted the personal rank of
the Mogul noble in the mansabdari system while the sawar rank denoted
the number of cavalry which the mansabdar had to maintain for imperial
service. 82 In a contingent of a mansabdar of 10,000, other mansabdars as high
as hazaris (commanders of 1,000) served. In the contingent of a mansabdar
of 8,000, mansabdars who were commanders of 800 sawar served; for a
mansabdar of 7,000, mansabdars up to the rank of 700 served. 83 Abdul
Kadir Badauni (a chronicler who lived in Akbar's time) had written that the
contingent of a mansabdar comprised khas-khailan (his personal depend-
ants which included friends, relatives, and clan members, etc.) as well as
bargirs who were mercenaries. 84 To borrow John Lynn's army style model,
the Mogul army, mainly centred around the mansabdari system, was not a
state commission army 85 but an agglomeration of quasi-bureaucratic units.
79 Zaidi, "Akbar and the Rajput Principalities", p. 15.
80 The Akbar Nama, III, p. 76.
81 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, p. 248.
82 M. Athar Ali claims that sawar rank represented the number of horses and half the number
of troopers, a mansabdar had to maintain. This means that a mansabdar of 100 sawar rank
maintained 100 horses and 50 troopers. See Ali, "Organization of the Nobility", p. 250.
83 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, pp. 241-242.
84 The History of India, Elliot and Dawson, V, Tarikh-i-Badauni, of Abdul Kadir Badauni, p. 515.
A bargir was a trooper without a horse. His employer provided him with a horse when he joined
the contingent.
85 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West".
96
KAUSHIK ROY
J.S. Grewal says that the mansabdari system represented a suzerain/
vassal relationship. 86 The mansabdari system was also partly a case of the
tributary form of military employment. After being defeated, the chieftains
belonging to different principalities were encouraged and at times coerced
to serve in the Mogul army and in return were rewarded with jagirs. When
Akbar established himself at Agra, a large number of principalities were
under the control of autonomous and semi-autonomous hereditary chief-
tains. The latter were known as rajas, ranas, rawats, or rais. They were also
known as Rajputs, and the Mogul chroniclers called them zamindars. Some
of the Rajput chieftains maintained large numbers of cavalry. Those who
joined the Mogul service were granted mansabs. 87 During Shah Jahan's
reign, large numbers of mansabs were granted to the Muslim nobles of the
Deccani sultanates in order to win them over to Mogul service. 88
Throughout the territories under their control, the Moguls collected taxes
from the peasants through the zamindars who were allowed a certain com-
mission for discharging this duty. 89 The military retainers of the zamindars,
claims Douglas E. Streusand, comprised a nucleus of retainers from their
own caste supplemented by the peasants. 90 Many zamindars who were loyal
to the Mogul Empire and were in the good books of the Mogul provincial
governors (subadars) were inducted in the mansabdari service. By joining
the mansabdari service they received additional land grants which enabled
them to maintain larger number of cavalry with which they could defeat
local opposition to their rule. One example will suffice. In the thirtieth
regnal year of Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658), Salabat Khan, the governor of the
suba (province) of Allahabad, introduced Anup Singh, the zamindar of
Bandhu in the durbar. Shah Jahan awarded Anup Singh a mansab of 3,000
and granted him a jagir for maintaining the troopers in accordance with
the number stipulated in his mansab. 31
Many Persian and Turani adventurers who came to India in search
of employment were also appointed as mansabdars. In 1595, there were
279 mansabdars, of whom 47 were Rajputs (Hindus) and 75 were Persians
(Shias). 9Z Many Indian Muslims were also given mansab ranks. For instance,
86 Grewal, "The Sikh Movement during the Reign of Akbar", pp. 252-253.
87 Khan, "Akbar's Initial Encounters with the Chiefs", pp. 1, 6.
88 Moosvi, "The Mughal Empire and Deccan", p. 221.
89 Hasan, "Zamindars under the Mughals", p. 137.
90 Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire, p. 43.
91 Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan, ed. by Begley and Desai, pp. 529-530.
92 Ali, "Sulh-i Kul and the Religious Ideas of Akbar", p. 165. Ali does not consider here the
mansabdars whose ranks were below 200.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
97
one shaikhzada from Lucknow was granted a mansab of 700 by Akbar. In
the eleventh year of Shah Jahan's reign, the son of Nazar Muhammad, the
ruler of Balkh came to India and joined Mogul service. He was granted
ranks of 1,500 zat and 800 sawar and given a jagir in Bihar. 93
The mansabdari system was a quasi-professional and partly bureaucratic
system as there were thirty-three to sixty-six grades. On the basis of their
performance, the mansabdars were either promoted to higher ranks or
demoted to lower ones. Besides possessing a hierarchy, the mansabdars
were also transferred to different regions in their service life and were oc-
casionally suspended from service. Athar Ali asserts that the mansabdars in
general were transferred every two to three years. 94 Generally, mansabdars
were given lifelong employment by the Mogul durbar. Unlike the mercenar-
ies, the mansabdars' freedom in leaving the service was limited. Khwaja
Abdullah, a mansabdar in 1611 under Jahangir's reign, was ordered to move
into Deccan. However, he left Deccan without imperial permission and, in
retaliation, his jagir was sequestered by the imperial government. For some
time, he was imprisoned in the fort of Asir. When Shah Jahan ascended the
throne, Abdullah was reinstated in service and given ranks of 5,000 zat and
5,000 sawar. Again Raja Pratap of Ujjain, a Hindu chieftain of Bihar, who
held ranks of 1,500 zat and 1,000 sawar, withdrew from service in the tenth
year of Shah Jahan's reign. An army was sent against him and, after being
defeated in battle, he was executed. In the twentieth year of Shah Jahan's
reign, Abdul Haji Khwaja held the zat rank of 900 and sawar rank of 600. In
the next year, he was promoted to the zat rank of 1,500 and sawar rank of 800.
In the twenty-third year of Shah Jahan's reign, his sawar rank was increased
to 1,000. During the fourth year of Shahjahan's reign, Khwaja was deployed
in Deccan and then in Malwa. In the twenty-sixth year of Shahjahan's
reign, Khwaja was sent with Prince Dara Shikoh (Shahjahan's eldest son) to
Kandahar to fight the Safavids. At that time, his sawar rank remained 1,000,
but his zat rank was raised from 1,500 to 2,000. In the twenty-seventh year
of Shahjahan's reign, Khwaja was given the honour of possessing a flag. 95
Again, Akbar introduced the descriptive roll system and the issue of pay
was dependent on the inspection of these rolls by the imperial inspectors.
To prevent borrowing of horses between the mansabdars, Akbar made the
system of branding horses compulsory. 96 The punishment in the Mogul
93 The Maathir-ul-Umara, I, pp. 48-49.
94 Ali, "Political Structures of the Islamic Orient", pp. 99-100.
95 The Maathir-ul-Umara, I, pp. 36, 98-101, 103.
96 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, p. 242.
98
KAUSHIK ROY
army for looting civilians was physical mutilation, cutting off the nose of
the offender. 97
The mansabdari system was quasi-professional because there was no
training academy for the mansabdars. Unlike the European monarchs and
princes, the Mogul emperors did not set up any institution for teaching
military arts to the nobles. For instance, in 1606, an academy was founded
at Sedan by the due de Bouillon, brother-in-law of Prince Maurice of Orange.
Between 1608 and 1610, the Venetian Republic established four academies
(at Padua, Treviso, Udine, and Verona) to train skilled cavalrymen. Similar
institutions were opened by Landgrave Maurice of Hesse-Cassel (1618), by
Denmark's Christian IV at Soro in 1623, and by the military entrepreneur
Count Albrecht von Wallenstein at Gitschin in 1624. Don Gaspar de Guzman
Olivares (1587-1645, count-duke and chief minister of Philip IV of Spain)
pushed for the opening of the Colegio Imperial (a military academy for
the nobles) at Madrid in 1625. 98 The Delhi Sultanate held periodic furusiya
exercises for training mounted archers. In addition, the cavaliers were
trained in playing chaugan (polo) and swordsmanship. 99 We are not sure
whether these practices continued in Mogul India or not. Probably, most of
the mansabdars and their contingents got on-the-job training on the bat-
tlefield. However, hunting as military training continued under the Moguls.
The mansabdari system was not hereditary. Nevertheless, mansabdars who
displayed bravery and loyalty in imperial service had their male heirs' and
relatives' cases assessed favourably by the durbar. When a son was allowed
to succeed his father, his mansab was generally lower than that of his father.
The son had to prove himself to achieve a rank similar to or higher than his
father's. To give an example, Mir Kamal-ud-Din came to India and served
Akbar. Kamal-ud-Din's son Mirak Husain served Jahangir and Husain's
son Muin-ud-Din served Shah Jahan. Under Aurangzeb, Muin-ud-Din
became the diwan (officer in charge of finance) of Lahore, Multan, Kabul,
and Kashmir. When Abdul Hadi Khwaja, the mansabdar of Shah Jahan
and holding zat rank of 2,000 and sawar rank of 1,000 died in 1656, his son,
Khawajajah, was given the zat rank of 1,000 and sawar rank of 400. For the
mansabdars, there was no clear separation of civilian and military posts.
Khwaja Abdul Majid, who came from Central Asia, joined Humayun and
became a diwan. In Akbar's reign, he became the governor of Delhi and held
97 Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, II, 1754-71, p. 18.
98 Storrs and Scott, "The Military Revolution and the European Nobility", p. 26.
99 Ali, Military Technology and Warfare in the Sultanate of Delhi, pp. 33, 35.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
99
a mansab of 3,000,'°° and in his time most of the higher-ranking mansabdars
were governors of subas. 101
Technical skills and foreign mercenaries
For manufacturing and manning gunpowder weapons, Mogul depend-
ence on foreign professionals continued from Babur to Akbar. During the
First Battle of Panipat, Ustad Ali Quli Khan was in charge of positioning
the matchlock men behind the chained baggage carts and the field guns
deployed in the centre of Babur's army at Panipat. In addition, Ustad Quli
Khan was also in charge of manufacturing stone-throwing mortars of vari-
ous sizes required for deployment on the battlefield as well as for taking the
forts. He was present in the Battle of Chaldiran, 102 fought in 1514 between
the Ottomans and the Persians, where the Ottomans deployed chained
baggage carts behind which they placed their field guns and matchlock
men. 103 Another Rumi (Ottoman) mercenary of Babur was Mustafa, who
commanded the culverins in the Battle of Khanwa and was in charge of
arranging the chained carts in the Rumi way during the battle. In this
battle, Ustad Quli deployed the matchlock men behind mobile wooden
tripods. 104 The technical skill of the Ottoman mercenaries in manufacturing
and manning gunpowder weapons made Ustad Quli Khan and Mustafa
valuable for Babur. They could be categorized as professional mercenaries.
Babur's son Humayun continued to depend on them; some of these
mercenaries were actually deserters who joined the Mogul service probably
due to the greater prospect of loot and plunder. Some of the technical/
professional mercenaries' children also followed the profession of their
fathers. Ustad Ali Quli's son, M.K. Rumi, was in charge of the Mogul gun
carriages and mortars during the Battle of Kanauj. 105 Rumi Khan, the
commandant of the Gujarat Sultanate's artillery department, deserted
Sultan Bahadur Shah and joined Humayun in 1533. Rumi Khan was a
military engineer and was considered an expert in siege warfare. In 1537,
he advised Humayun in conducting the siege of Chunar Fort held by Sher
Shah. Mining, sapping, and the construction of batteries were done under
100 The Maathir-ul-Umara, I, pp. 12, 36-37.
101 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, p. 252.
102 The Babur-Nama, II, pp. 466, 468-469, 473, 536, 599-600, 667.
103 Lane-Poole, The Emperor Babar, p. 162.
104 Babur-Nama, II, pp. 550, 557-558; The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 263.
105 The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 351.
100
KAUSHIK ROY
the advice of Rumi Khan. 106 Under Humayun, Rumi Khan became MirAtish
(director-general of artillery). 107 In 1555, Ustad Aziz Sistani from Aleppo
was taken into the Mogul army for his expertise in pyrotechnics. 108 In 1591,
while campaigning in Sind, the siege operation against Unarpur Fort was
directed by Ustad Yar Muhammad Khan. He was considered an expert in
the Ottoman technique of raising mounds of sand on which the Mogul
batteries were placed during the siege. Yar Muhammad Khan had come
from Persia. 109 Certain Ottoman military techniques had seeped into Iran
due to Ottoman-Safavid military confrontations. So, we could speculate
that he was adept at Ottoman techniques of siege warfare.
Besides the Moguls, the other Islamic polities in South Asia also depended
on foreign mercenaries for harnessing gunpowder technology. The largest
bronze cannon at Bijapur, Malik Maidan, was cast by a Turkish engineer
named Muhammad bin Hasan Rumi in 1548. 110 In addition to the Turks, the
subcontinent's rulers also hired West Europeans in the artillery department.
Bahadur Shah of Gujarat had many Portuguese gunners in his army. 111 From
the second half of the seventeenth century, the Mogul artillery was manned
by Portuguese, British, Dutch, German, and French mercenaries. These
foreigners were deserters from European ships and entered Mogul dominion
through Goa for higher pay. They were paid Rs 200 per month. 112
Regional levies
The Moguls, like the Delhi Sultanate, also depended on the indigenous
regional levies. For foot musketeers, who were especially important during
siege operations, the Mogul Empire hired Hindu mercenaries through the
zamindars. Jahangir noted in his autobiography that in 1609: "I ordered the
nephew of Bihari Chand, the qanungo [magistrate] of the Agra sarkar, to
muster a thousand foot soldiers from the zamindars of Agra, fix a monthly
stipend for them, and take them to Pervez in the Deccan."" 3 Most of the foot
106 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, pp. 4-5, 9-10.
107 The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 331.
108 Ibid., I, p. 640.
109 Bilgrami, "The Mughal Annexation of Sind", p. 48.
110 Balasubramaniam, "A Catalogue of Massive Forge-Welded Iron Cannon in India: Part 1",
P- 77-
111 Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 10.
112 The History of India, Elliot and Dawson, VI, Appendix, p. 469.
113 The Jahangirnama, p. 104.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
101
soldiers came from Allahabad, Buxar, and Bhojpur in the Shahabad District,
south of Ganga and west of the Son River. These people belonged to the Uj-
jayina branch of Rajputs. Another locality which provided the foot soldiers
was Baiswara in Awadh which was inhabited by Baiswara Rajputs. The
Unao and Rae Bareilly districts, which covered about 2,000 square miles,
were inhabited by Baiswara Rajputs. 114 Incidentally, these groups joined the
infantry of Sher Shah and Hemu. 115 And after the Moguls, the Rajputs of Bihar
served in the infantry of Maratha Confederacy and the East India Company
during the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. The
Ain-i-Akbari notes some regions where matchlock men were available in
large numbers, Bhograi and Kasijora mahals (districts) in Jaleswar Sarkar
(division, which means a collection of districts) of Orissa. 116 The Moguls
probably also tapped these sources. The musketeers of the Mogul army
also came from Bundelkhand and Karnatak. The Karnatakis served in the
army of the Bijapur Sultanate as well. 117 In addition to musketeers, the Mogul
army hired men equipped with bans (rockets). The Afghans of Bengal were
considered experts in this branch of warfare. 118
Miscellaneous mini-systems
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, in the regions outside the Mogul
Empire, various other forms of military employment were operational. In
the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in western Deccan, Abyssinian military slaves
and Abyssinian mercenaries played an important role. 119 The Abyssinians
(also known as Habshis in India) were African Muslims from Ethiopia who
either came to India as free-born adventurers or were imported as slaves.
Most of the slaves originated in the Kambata region of southern Ethiopia.
The Deccani sultanates exported cotton textiles and ivory, and imported
Abyssinian slaves plus Arabian war horses. 120 According to one estimate,
114 Bhattasali, "Bengal Chiefs' Struggle for Independence", pp. 19, 32.
115 TheAkbar-Nama,U,p.6o.
116 The Ain-i-Akbari, II, pp. 155-156.
117 Sarkar, Nadir Shah in India, p. 54.
118 TheAkbar-Nama,l,p.3s8.
119 Shyam, The Life and Times of Malik Ambar, p. 12; The Maathir-ul-Umara, by Beveridge, I,
P-54-
120 Eaton, A Social History of Deccan, pp. 105-109.
102
KAUSHIK ROY
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, about 10,000-12,000 slaves were
exported annually from Ethiopia for the Deccani sultanates. 121
One of the most famous Habshi slaves was Malik Ambar. Malik Ambar
was born at Harare in Ethiopia in 1548-1549. His parents sold him in the
slave market of Baghdad where he was bought by the slave merchant Mir
Qasim. Then, he was sold to Changiz Khan, who had 1,000 slaves and was an
important noble of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. When Changiz Khan died,
Malik Ambar enrolled himself as an ordinary soldier in the Ahmadnagar
army. We do not know whether Malik Ambar was ever manumitted or not.
His rise to power started when he was made a commander of 150 horse-
men of Ahmadnagar. 122 This time, Ambar's status was that of a military
entrepreneur. Within a few years, Malik Ambar became the "sultan maker"
and principal noble of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate until his death in 1626.
During the eighteenth century, the Abyssinian (also referred to as Arab)
mercenaries continued in the service of the Maratha Confederacy.
In addition to the Abyssinian mercenaries and the slaves, the Ahmadnagar
Sultanate also depended upon the semi-autonomous Koli chiefs who provided
cavalry and infantry and occasionally changed sides in accordance with
the shifting political circumstances. The Kolis joined the Maratha warlord
Shivaji's infantry during the second half of the seventeenth century. In 1625, to
fight the Portuguese, who fielded mainly infantry equipped with handguns,
Malik Ambar requisitioned foot soldiers (known as hasham) from the karkuns
(district officials) of Chaul in western Maharashtra. They were experts in
the use of firearms, like the Rajputs of Awadh and Bihar who joined the
Mogul infantry. 123 The employment of musketeers spread in response to the
firepower-heavy infantry of the Portuguese. As the Mogul Empire spread into
Deccan during the second half of the seventeenth century, the mansabdari
system more or less eclipsed the other mini-systems of military employment.
Demography, economy, and military labourers
At the end of the sixteenth century, the population of England was 4 mil-
lion, Spain's was 7 million, and France's was 14 million. 124 Between 1450
121 Ibid., pp. 109-111.
122 Shyam, The Life and Times of Malik Ambar, pp. 34-37.
123 Ibid., pp. 22, 147.
124 Nolan, "The Militarization of the Elizabethan State", p. 271.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
103
and 1700, the population of Europe rose from 50 million to 120 million. 125
During the eighteenth century, while Iran's population was 9 million, the
population of the Ottoman Empire was 30 million. 126 In 1601, the population
of the subcontinent (3.2 million km 2 ) was 145 million. 127 In the seventeenth
century, the rate of increase of population was roughly 0.21 per cent per
annum. 128 The vast demographic resources of South Asia resulted in the
absence of conscription in the subcontinent.
The very existence of an extensive potential military labour pool did
not encourage the Mogul emperors to maintain a select standing army
comprising drilled and disciplined infantry and cavalry troopers. Since
supply exceeded demand, there was no point in maintaining a big standing
army year after year. Rather, during emergencies, infantry and cavalry were
raised at short notice and sent to the trouble spots. And after the crisis was
over, the soldiers hired from the zamindars for a particular campaign were
disbanded. Abul Fazl tells us that in Akbar's empire (which excluded Deccan
and south India), the zamindars were able to furnish 4 million and 4 lakh
armed men. 129 The Ain-i-Akbari further informs us that the forces under the
zamindars of Bengal Suba comprised 23,330 cavalry and 801,150 infantry. 130
Politics and the culture of military remuneration, and not the economy
of South Asia, payment of the military entrepreneurs and their retainers
through land grants rather than cash. Instead of economic forces, the nature
of politics determined the form of remuneration to the military labourers.
The centralized Turkish state built by Sultan Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296-1316),
who had a standing cavalry force paid in tonkas, had disintegrated by the
time of the establishment of the Lodi dynasty under Bahlul (r. 1451-1489).
John F. Richards writes that there was no shortage of precious metal in
north India, and trade and commerce were flourishing in the first half of
the sixteenth century there. However, due to the decentralized tribal nature
of Lodi polity, Bahlul was forced to assign land grants permanently to the
various Afghan tribal chiefs (Lodi, Lohani, Farmuli, and Sharwani clans, all
of which belonged to the Ghilzai tribe) who maintained troopers from the
revenues extracted from the grants. Bahlul had no control over the revenues
of these grants. These tribal chiefs were semi-autonomous. Bahlul had to
depend on clan ties and blood relationships with the Afghan chiefs while
125 Ali, "The Passing of the Empire", p. 339.
126 Axworthy, The Sword of Persia, p. 29.
127 Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 1.
128 Moosvi, "The Indian Economic Experience 1600-1900", pp. 4-5.
129 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, p. 241.
130 Ibid., II, p. 141.
104
KAUSHIK ROY
mobilizing their forces. In fact, Bahlul lacked a standing army under his
direct control. Bahlul's successor, Sikander Lodi (r. 1489-1517), amassed loot
by plundering the Rajput principalities. 131 Ibrahim Lodi, son of Sikander,
raised the mercenaries just before the battle from the bazaars (markets) of
Delhi by distributing cash from the wealth stored by his predecessors. 132 In
Ibrahim's reign, the monthly wage of a footman was 5 Sikandari tankas and
that of a sawar varied between 20 and 30 Sikandari tankas. 133
Even the Rajput principalities maintained troops by grantingyag/rs to
their chiefs. Abul Fazl writes that among the Rajputs the custom was that a
jagirdar holding a jagirworth 100,000 maintained 100 horses, and a jagirdar
holding a jagirworth one crore was able to maintain 10,000 horses. 134
Sher Shah acquired 900,000 silver tankas after defeating Sultan Ghiyas-
uddin Mahmud of Bengal in 1535. 135 Between 1535 and 1537, Sher's army
increased from 6,000 to 70,000 horsemen and the latter's salary bill came
to about 12 crore tankas per month. Raziuddin Aquil asserts that Sher paid
his soldiers a fixed sum every month in cash and that they were not allowed
to engage in pillage and plundering while campaigning. 136 Sher Shah issued
coins from his mints at Shergarh in Rohtas and Hajipur near Patna. 137 In 1537,
Sher, controlling Bihar and Bengal, had an annual income of 16 crore tankas. 138
In October 1504, Babur occupied Kabul and Ghazni. Then, he distributed
tuyuls (fiefs) to some of his begs (nobles with armed retainers) who had
served him from the earliest times. 139 They were probably the chiefs of his
loyal household troops. Babur could afford to do this because by that time
he was a territorial prince with a kingdom comprising Afghanistan. This was
the first instance of regular payment in kind that Babur made to his military
officers. After conquering Punjab, Babur bestowed various regions on his dif-
ferent commanders. For example, Dipalpur was given to Baqi Shaghawal. 140
In addition, Babur also depended on pillage and plunder to sustain and
reward his troops after victories. To give an example, in 1519, Babur levied
131 Richards, "The Economic History of the Lodi Period".
132 Babur-Nama, II, p. 470.
133 Roy, Niamatullah's History of the Afghans, pp. 187-188; 20 Sikandari tankas are equal to 1
silver tanka.
134 The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 260. Abul Fazl does not specify whether the annual revenue was
calculated in tankas or dams.
135 Hussain, "Glimpses of Silver Coins of the Patna Mint", p. 185.
136 Aquil, Sufism, Culture, and Politics, pp. 76, 105-106, 108.
137 Hussain, "Glimpses of Silver Coins of the Patna Mint", pp. 184-185.
138 Aquil, Sufism, Culture, and Politics, pp. 107-108.
139 Babur-Nama, I, pp. 199, 227.
140 Ibid., II, p. 463.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
105
400,000 shahrukhis (20,000 pounds sterling) as protection money from Bhira
on the left bank of Jhelum. After victory in the First Battle of Panipat, the
Moguls captured Delhi and Agra and acquired a large amount of coined and
non-coin treasure that had been accumulated by the Delhi Sultanate. Babur
divided a portion of the spoils (jewels, gold and silver money) among his
troops. The amirs got between 5 to 10 lakh tankas each and the soldiers got
cash. 141 Babur's son Humayun also followed the policy of parcelling out his
realm among his nobles so that the latter could maintain their contingents
from the revenues of the tracts assigned to them. 142 After a victory, Humayun
would distribute the loot among his nobles and their retainers. For instance
in 1533 after capturing Champanir, the capital of Gujarat, the treasure found
in the fort was distributed among his army personnel. 143
The principal income of the Mogul Empire came from land tax, and
agriculture was expanding in the Mogul Empire. For example, by c. 1600,
the extensive forest in the western part of the Ganga-Jamuna doab was
cleared and the region was intensely cultivated and densely populated. 144
The peasants sold the grain to pay revenue in cash. Abul Fazl writes that the
peasants in Bengal paid their taxes in mohurs (golden coins) and rupees. 145
Sonargaon in Bengal produced world-famous muslin. 146 India exported
cotton textiles, indigo, and pepper to South-East Asia, East Africa, and the
Middle East. 147 Economically, Mogul India was in a favourable position
vis-a-vis Persia. Silk from Bengal pushed silk manufactured in Persia out of
the European markets, and Indian cotton was also imported into Persia. The
balance of trade was therefore more favourable to India than to Persia. 148
Prasannan Parthasarathi claims that Indian calicoes and muslins captured
the European markets. Due to a loss of bullion, the Europeans raised tariff
barriers against the entry of Indian textiles. 149 Parthasarathi and Richards
write that the Mogul Empire was self-financing from its own resources.
The emperors did not have to depend on loans from the private financiers.
State finance depended on a robust monetary system, which in turn relied
141 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 238, 248.
142 Matta, Sher Shah Suri, pp. 92-93.
143 The Tezkereh al Vakiat, p. 6.
144 Moosvi, "Ecology, Population Distribution, and Settlement Pattern in Mughal India",
pp. 92, 100.
145 The Ain-i-Akbari, II, p. 134.
146 Ibid., II, p. 136.
147 Moosvi, "Urban Population in Pre-Colonial India", p. 126; Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 4.
148 Axworthy, The Sword of Persia, p. 28.
149 Parthasarati, "Was There Capitalism in Early Modern India?" p. 353.
106
KAUSHIK ROY
upon the regular inflow of gold, silver, and copper. India produced inad-
equate quantities of these precious metals, but its export surplus enabled
the country to import large amounts that had been produced in the New
World and Japan. Akbar established a tripartite currency system based
on gold, silver, and copper coins issued from the centrally administered
imperial mints. 150 The important mints of Mogul Empire were at Cambay,
Lahore, Multan, Kabul, Patna, Rajmahal, and so forth. 151 In Akbar's reign,
the mints at Ajmir, Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri, and Lahore produced silver coins.
The two great cities of Agra and Fatehpur Sikri were bigger than London and
Amsterdam. 152 The coins were used to pay the merchants who imported war
horses from Central Asia and Persia. 153 Shireen Moosvi speculates that from
1576 onwards the silver currency output of the Mogul Empire was 151.69
metric tonnes annually. 154 Towards the end of Akbar's period, the Mogul
Empire retained an annual surplus of income over expenditure of between
3.9 million and 4.7 million silver rupees equivalent in cash. 155 Streusand is
wrong in saying that incomplete monetization of the economy, rudimentary
banking institutions, and the difficulty of transporting large amount of
cash made the central collection of revenue and distribution of cash salaries
impractical, and that therefore the Moguls used the jagir system. 156
Despite the presence of a monetized economy in the subcontinent, the
culture of remuneration was to pay the soldiers (especially the higher ranks,
i.e., officers) by issuing land grants, and the ultimate objective of these
officers was to establish themselves as landed aristocracy with territorial
bases. 157 Only the mercenaries were paid in cash. The pay of the matchlock
men varied between 2.5 to 6.25 rupees (henceforth Rs) per month. The pay
of a mirdaha (non-commissioned officer of the matchlock men) varied
between 6.5 and 7.5 Rs per month. 158 During the first half of the sixteenth
century, the level of monetization was low in Deccan. However, in the
seventeenth century, west India experienced a high level of monetization
150 Richards, "The Seventeenth Century Crisis in South Asia", pp. 628-629.
151 Moosvi, "The Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices and Revenue-Extraction in Mughal India",
pp. 42-43-
152 Moosvi, "Urban Population in Pre-Colonial India", pp. 130-131.
153 Haidar, "Disappearance of Coin Minting in the 1580s?" pp. 57-58, 60.
154 Moosvi, "The Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices and Revenue-Extraction in Mughal India",
P- 45-
155 Richards, "The Seventeenth Century Crisis in South Asia", p. 627.
156 Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire, pp. 67-68.
157 Gordon, "Symbolic and Structural Constraints on the Adoption of European-Style Military
Technologies", p. 159.
158 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, Note by the translator, p. 258.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
107
due to the export of cotton textiles from Surat. Still, the Maratha chieftains
wanted to be paid through land grants (saranjams, non-hereditary land
grants for military service, and imams, hereditary land grants for special
service and merit). 159
The mansabdars were not paid in cash. For example, Abdullah Khan, one
of the principal officers of Humayun, was granted the rank of 5,000 by Akbar
during the seventh year of his reign and was granted Kalpi as a jagir. 160 For
conducting campaigns on behalf of the Moguls, the emperors gave jagirs to
those Hindu chieftains who held mansabs. In an attempt to control these
chieftains and also to prevent the expansion of their territorial bases, the
imperial court granted jagirs in regions far away from their principalities. 161
In case of disloyalty, these jagirs were sequestered by the imperial court.
The jama-dami (estimated income from the jagir) was equivalent to the
talab (salary) of the mansabdar. 162 Moosvi asserts that the price rise in the
seventeenth century was about 30 per cent. Between 1595 and 1700, the jama
(assessed revenue) of the Mogul Empire (excluding Deccan) registered an
increase of about 44 per cent. 163 By the mid-seventeenth century, due to
the onset of the agrarian crisis, the mansabdars holding ranks of 4,000 and
5,000 were able to extract only three to four months' pay in a year from their
jagirs. 16 * This was the case during the first half of the sixteenth century for
those mansabdars whose jagirs were assigned in Deccan. 165 This was due
to the gap between jama and hal-i-hasil (the amount which actually could
be realized from the jagir). Continuous warfare in Deccan and the failure
of the monsoon resulted in famine; these three causes led to the collapse
of agriculture, which in turn triggered the agrarian crisis. 166 The crisis in
the mansabdari system was related to the agrarian crisis, 167 an issue which
is not relevant for my limited purpose in this chapter.
Most of the land in the Mogul Empire was granted as jagirs to the
mansabdars. Only a small portion, known as khalisa (crown land), was
administered directly by the emperor's bureaucrats. The revenue from the
159 Gordon, The Marathas: 1600-1818, pp. 21-22.
160 The Maathir-ul-Umara, by Beveridge, I, p. 82.
161 Zaidi, "Akbar and the Rajput Principalities", p. 16.
162 Ali, "Towards an Interpretation of the Mughal Empire", p. 62.
163 Moosvi, "An Estimate of Revenues of the Deccan Kingdoms", p. 293.
164 The Maathir-ul-Umara, by Beveridge, I, p. 104.
165 Moosvi, "The Mughal Empire and the Deccan", pp. 219-220.
166 Moosvi, "Scarcities, Prices, and Exploitation", pp. 230-231.
167 The literature on the agrarian crisis and its adverse effect on the loyalty of the mansabdars
and the efficiency of their contingents is vast. S. Nurul Hasan states that the crisis began in the
first decade of the seventeenth century: Hasan, "The Theory of Nurjahan 'Junta'", p. 128.
108
KAUSHIK ROY
khalisa was utilized for meeting the emperor's personal expenses and those
of his own small standing army, known as the ahadis. 168 Around 1600, the
Mogul nobility (mansabdars) absorbed about 82 per cent of the Mogul Em-
pire's total revenue. 169 Abul Fazl tells us that the annual revenue of the Mogul
Empire in 1594 amounted to 62 crores 97 lakhs 55,246 dams (Rs 90,743, 881). 170
In 1648, according to one estimate, the net revenue income of the Mogul
Empire was 880 crore dams. 171 Under Akbar, there were 1,600 mansabdars
(1,350 mansabdars with ranks of 150 and below and 250 mansabdars with
ranks higher than 150). In Shahjahan's time, there were 8,000 mansabdars. 172
In contrast to the large number of retainers of the mansabdars, Akbar
maintained only 12,000 cavalry and 12,000 matchlock men under his direct
control. These 24,000 soldiers were known as ahadis. Under Shah Jahan,
there were only 7,000 ahadis. 173 As a point of comparison, in 1550, Ivan IV
of Russia maintained a standing force of 3,000 select musketeers, each
of whom was paid 4 rubles a year. 174 In 1648, the force recruited and paid
directly by the Mogul imperial establishment amounted to only 47,000
soldiers. 175
Most of the Mogul army personnel were under the mansabdars. The theo-
retical potential strength of the forces under the Moguls in 1647 numbered
911,400 cavalry and infantry. The revenues of the Mogul Empire amounted
to 12,071,876,840 dams (320 dams was equivalent to £1 sterling). 176 Streusand
interprets Abul Fazl's figure by saying that the Mogul Empire supported
342,696 cavalry and 4,039,097 infantry. The total number of cavalry and
infantry comprised roughly 10 per cent of the male population. 177 Accord-
ing to another author, Shah Jahan maintained 200,000 cavalry and 40,000
infantry (musketeers, artillerymen, rocket men, etc.). This was exclusive
of the soldiers maintained by the faujdars (Mogul officials in charge of
maintaining law and order in a district) and district officials concerned
with the administration of revenue. The breakdown of the 200,000 cavalry
was as follows: 185,000 troopers of the mansabdars, 8,000 mansabdars, and
168 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, pp. 252, 259-260.
169 Trivedi, "The Share of the Mansabdars in State Revenue Resources", p. 411.
170 The Ain-i-Akbari, II, p. 129.
171 Moosvi, "Expenditure on Buildings on under Shah Jahan", p. 199.
172 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, Note by the translator, pp. 257-258.
173 Ibid., I, Book Second, Note by the translator, p. 256; Akbar-Nama, I, p. 642.
174 Davies, "The Foundations of Muscovite Military Power", p. 22.
175 Moosvi, "Expenditure on Buildings on under Shah Jahan", p. 200.
176 Fraser, The History of Nadir Shah, pp. 27, 33.
177 Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire, p. 41.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
109
7,000 mounted ahadis. 178 A Mogul field army at that time numbered about
50,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry. 179
Culture and combat motivation
Greed, asserts Sukraniti, motivated the mercenaries to join battle. 180 The
Nitiprakasika highlights the importance of regular pay in motivating the
soldiers. 181 Nevertheless, men do not fight for pecuniary rewards alone.
Mentality is an important constituent of pre-combat and in-combat ethos.
And at times military service defined the identity of various communities.
Despite the rise and fall of polities due to fluctuations in politics and the
changing nature of technologies, the culture of the various communities
changes very slowly. So the Hindu texts generated during pre-Mogul era
offer a window into the mentality of the Hindu warrior ethos.
The cultural ethos of the Rajputs (the landowning aristocracy also known
as thakurs), who resisted the Turks and became an important segment of the
Mogul army from Akbar onwards, needs to be evaluated. The term "Rajput"
is derived from the word rajaputra meaning sons of the king. Military
service, especially mounted service, was very popular among the Rajputs. 182
The Rajputs' military ethic was guided by kshatradharma, which had some
parallel with chivalry of the medieval west European knights. 183 Loyalty and
bravery were the two core values of kshatradharma. The ideology of combat
centred on duty to one's master and the display of individual prowess in
the battlefield. 184 The Rajput concept of namak halali (loyalty to the salt-
giver) means that they should remain loyal to the person whose salt they
178 The Ain-i-Akbari, I, Book Second, Note by the translator, p. 254.
179 This was the size of the army sent against Safavid Kandahar in 1650: The History of India,
Elliott and Dawson, VII, Shah Jahan Nama of Inayat Khan, p. 99.
180 Oppert, On the Weapons, Army Organization, and Political Maxims of the Ancient Hindus,
p. 139. Sukraniti and Nitiprakasika are political texts generated by the Hindus during the early
medieval period. These normative texts deal with the duties of a just ruler, the concept of
dharmayuddha (just war), the ethics of conducting warfare, the use of new weapons, and
political guidance for just rulers.
181 Nitiprakasika, p. 26.
182 Sharma, "The Military System of the Mewar (Udaipur) State", p. 118; Ziegler, "Evolution of
the Rathor State of Marvar", p. 194.
183 Yadava, "Chivalry and Warfare".
184 Ziegler, "Evolution of the Rathor State of Marvar", p. 202.
110
KAUSHIK ROY
have eaten, in other words, to their employer. 185 The Rajput heroic ballads
emphasized that seva (duty and loyalty) to the lord was more important than
duty and loyalty towards one's family. 186 The bravery of the Rajputs revolved
around the concept of paurusha (manliness), which means sacrificing one's
life in the battlefield. The Prithvirajvijayamahakavya tells us that for the
Chauhans (a Rajput clan) fighting was a way of life. The Rajputs considered
themselves as Kshatriyas, and soldiering was regarded as their caste duty.
They believed that tactical retreat in the battlefield was inglorious, and
they considered that sacrificing their lives on the battlefield, rather than
becoming prisoners-of-war, was the highest possible achievement. 187 The
medieval Hindu text Sukraniti emphasizes that it is a sin for a Kshatriya to
die peacefully at home. Rather, the Kshatriya earns a noble death by dying
in the battlefield while slaying enemies. Those Kshatriyas who die in the
battlefield achieve viragati (they become heroes and ascend to heaven). Such
a reward is acquired by the rishis (sages) only after long ascetic practices. 188
The Arthasastra also notes that soldiering is the caste duty of the Kshatri-
yas. 189 When the Islamic threat was absent, the various Rajput clans fought
among themselves for glory. 190 The contingents of the Rajput mansabdars
maintained charans (bards) whose duty was to encourage the soldiers by
playing martial music and reciting Rajput heroic ballads. 191
The Mogul military system also utilized caste and clan feelings to build
up primary group solidarity and camaraderie. The mansabdars' contingents
were not mono-ethnic units. The contingents of Rajput mansabdars did
not comprise solely Rajput troopers but also included Muslim sowars. 192
Generally, the Rajput mansabdars had one-sixth of their contingents from
the non-Rajput groups. However, Rajput troopers preferred to serve under
Rajput chiefs. Several generations served simultaneously in a contingent
of a mansabdar. For instance, fathers, sons, uncles, nephews, cousins,
and brothers all served simultaneously in the contingent of a particular
mansabdar.™ The clan members were led on the battlefield by the clan
185 Stewart Gordon erroneously translates namakhalali as lun. See Gordon, "Zones of Military
Entrepreneurship in India", pp. 186-187.
186 Trivedi, "Images of Women from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century", p. 209.
187 Prithvirajvijayamahakavya, DitiyaAdhyaya, Sastha Adhaya.
188 Oppert, On the Weapons, Army Organization, and Political Maxims of the Ancient Hindus,
pp. 125-126.
189 The Kautily a Arthasastra, Part II, p. 7.
190 Prithvirajvijayamahakavya, Chaturtha Adhyaya.
191 Zaidi, "Ordinary Kachawaha Troopers serving the Mughal Empire", p. 63.
192 Ibid., pp. 62-63.
193 Zaidi, "Rozindar Troopers under Sawai Jai Singh of Jaipur", pp. 47-48.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
111
leaders. 194 The different Rajput clans who joined the Mogul service were the
Rathors, Sisodias, Kachawahas, Haras, Bhatis, and others. 195
Stewart Gordon asserts that the process of the rise of the Marathas in
medieval west India was somewhat similar to the emergence of Rajputs in
north India. Through service in the army and subsequently acquiring rights
over the land, and then consolidating such rights and following certain
rituals and customs, many became hereditary warrior elites. 196 Basically, the
warrior ethos of the Rajputs and the Marathas emphasized winning glory
and money and acquiring power. Social mobility was achieved by fighting
on horseback. They had a disdain for those who practised agriculture. 197
Those families in west India who followed the profession of soldiering and
acquired land were known as Marathas, in contrast to the lowly kunbis
(ordinary cultivators and artisans). The Marathas served as mercenaries in
the Muslim sultanates of pre-Mogul India. Gradually, the Maratha families
established themselves in particular regions and became semi-autonomous.
Thus, they could not be categorized as service elites. 198
The ethos of mercenary soldiering existed in pre-Mogul India. The Hindu
mercenaries are known as bhrata balas (literally "hired soldiers") in Sanskrit
literature. Several of them belonged to families whose hereditary trade
was soldiering. 199 The Panchantantra says that the mercenaries should
pursue the profession of soldiering without thinking about the reasons
behind warfare. 200 In the villages, akharas (gymnasiums) existed in which
the mercenaries engaged in wrestling to keep themselves physically fit. 201
Many of them were worshippers of the Hindu war gods Kartik and
Vishnu. 202 William Pinch writes that the armed ascetics, especially those
who were worshippers of Lord Shiva (the Hindu god of destruction), known
as Saivaites, played an important role in the military labour market of
Hindustan. Pinch continues that the tradition of armed ascetics functioning
as mercenaries went back to ancient times. Saiva asceticism did not preach
world denial. Theyogis (those who engage in yoga, i.e., in ascetic practices
194 Sharma, "The Military System of the Mewar (Udaipur) State", p. 121.
195 Ali, "Causes of the Rathor Rebellion of 1679", p. 259.
196 Gordon, The Marathas: 1600-1818, p. 16.
197 Gordon, "Zones of Military Entrepreneurship in India", p. 184.
198 Gordon, The Marathas: 1600-1818, pp. 15, 17.
199 Arthasastra, Part II, Kangle, p. 316.
200 Quoted in Oppert, On the Weapons, Army Organization, and Political Maxims of the Ancient
Hindus, p. 32.
201 Ibid., p. 85.
202 Kathasaritsagara, I, pp. 42, 156.
112
KAUSHIK ROY
to gain spiritual power) did not aim to become saints in the conventional
sense of the term. They were not noted for an intense love of God. Rather,
they aspired to become a second Shiva on earth. One of the bonds that held
the armed ascetic warrior bands together was the concept of chela, a faithful
disciple. Most of the chelas were originally slave boys who were sold by their
poor parents to the yogis in the asrams (Hindu religious institutions). 203 The
armed Hindu devotees of the god Vishnu were known as bairagis. They
were led by mahants (heads of the religious order). The armed ascetics
consumed bhang, opium, and other intoxicants before joining battle in
order to increase their enthusiasm for fighting. 204
Finally, let us turn our focus to the motivation of the Muslim soldiery. If
we believe Simon Digby, then the Turani soldiers of the Mogul army were
devotees of the Sufi saints. 205 The idea of Sufis being peace-loving saints
engaged in building bridges between the two antagonistic communities,
Hindus and Muslims, is now rightly discredited. 206 Digby asserts that even
the Afghan soldiers of Sher Shah believed that the Sufi pirs could make the
difference between victory and defeat on the battlefield. 207 Many of the
Mogul troopers had Naqshbandi affiliations. The Sufi saints traveled to and
fro between Transoxiana and Deccan. While some shaikhs functioned as
traveling pirs catering to the spiritual needs of the soldiers, other shaikhs
established khanqas at the capitals of the subas. zo% Some of the dervishes
were also expert bow-makers. 209 The soldiers and their officers believed
that the pirs' spiritual power would protect them against enemy arrows
and shots. In return for spiritual support, many soldiers and their officers
donated money for the construction of mosques. 210 Abul Fazl notes that,
when the Muslim troops loyal to the Mogul sovereign died while fighting
rebellious Muslims, then the former achieved martyrdom. 211 How far this
assertion represented the actual combat ethos of the loyal Mogul soldiery
remains an open question. In recent times, Rosalind O'Hanlon has asserted
that Mogul manliness was shaped by a modified version of the Persian
concept of javanmardi, which meant displaying courage and bravery in
203 Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, pp. 5, 26-27, 46, 59, 65-66, 81, 185.
204 Orr, "Armed Religious Ascetics in Northern India", pp. 189, 192, 197.
205 Sufis and Soldiers in Aurangzeb's Decca, p. xxvii.
206 Kumar, "Politics, the Muslim Community and Hindu-Muslim Relations Reconsidered".
207 Digby, "Dreams and Reminiscences of Dattu Sarvani", pp. 53, 56.
208 Sufis and Soldiers in Aurangzeb's Deccan, pp. 3-4.
209 The Akbar-Nama, I, p. 611.
210 Digby, Sufis and Soldiers in Aurangzeb's Deccan, pp. 10-11.
211 The Akbar-Nama, I, pp. 604-605.
FROM THE MAMLUKS TO THE MANSABDARS
113
imperial service. For the mounted musketeers, the skill of shooting from
horseback constituted the concept of being a "true" mirza. zlz
With the passage of time, we see a subtle change in the cultural motiva-
tions of both the Muslim and Rajput soldiery. The transformation of the
cultural ethos was related to the changes in the power politics of the real
world. Nothwithstanding the many syncretic and inclusionist dimensions of
medieval Islamic culture, asserts Rajat Datta, for the Islamic conquerors and
their ideologues, Hindustan was a land of kufr or infidels. 213 During the thir-
teenth century, the discourse among at least a powerful section of the Muslim
intellectuals was that jihad on part of the righteous sultan was necessary. The
jihad was directed towards despoiling the riches of the temples, killing the
Brahmans, and theoretically giving the Hindus the option of death or Islam. 214
And those ghazis (religious soldiers) who fell while conducting/7/zac/became
shahids (martyrs). When Babur fought the Rajputs at Khanwa, by giving
the call of jihad, the former tried to rouse the combat spirit of his Muslim
soldiery. However, when the multi-ethnic Mogul army comprising Muslim
and Hindu (Rajput and Maratha) soldiers fought the Shia Muslim sultanates
of Deccan (Bijapur and Golkunda), the policy was not to give the cry of jihad
but to rouse the Muslim soldiery by utilizing the power of the Sufi shaikhs.
Similarly, when the Rajputs fought the Muslims then the former relied on the
concept of dharmayuddha, but when the Rajputs fought in the Mogul army
they strengthened their combat ethos by harking back to their caste pride
as soldiers. In such circumstances, the Mogul Padshah was equated with
Ram, the Kshatriya hero of the epic Ramayana who waged dharmayuddha.^
Conclusion
Due to the vast demographic resources of South Asia (if one wants, then one
can use Dirk Kolff's term "military labour market"), military conscription
was neither necessary nor practised in Mogul times. Though the size of the
Mogul army in the first half of the sixteenth century was quite big, if we
take into account the vast population of the subcontinent, then the military
participation ratio was quite small. Again, military service in South Asia
during the Mogul and British eras, unlike in western Europe, remained a
212 O'Hanlon, "Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India".
213 Datta, "Introduction", p. 4.
214 Aquil, "OnlslamandA'u/Hn the Delhi Sultanate".
215 Datta, "Introduction", p. 6.
114
KAUSHIK ROY
honourable profession. Small farmers, marginal peasants, and share-croppers
earned more by joining the army, and low castes acquired Kshatriya status.
In certain cases, many small farmers became zamindars after a successful
military career, and ambitious zamindars became rajas after participating
in a successful campaign. So service in the army was a channel for upward
mobility. The Mogul army was not a rigid structure frozen in time, but a
multi-dimensional organization that evolved with age. However, certain
fundamental characteristics of the Mogul army can be elaborated. The Mogul
army was not a state commission force but a coalition of forces raised and
maintained by the different mansabdars (Persian and Turani adventurers,
Hindu chieftains, etc.) operating under the overall control of the emperor.
The Mogul army was not a national or Indian (if such a term could be used
at all) army. The army did not recruit just from the territories under its
control. The Mogul army was a multi-ethnic and multi-faith entity which
drew a considerable number of personnel from outside its territory. From the
religious perspective, the Mogul army comprised Muslims, Hindus, and some
Christians. As regards the Muslims, the Mogul nobility consisted of both
Shias from Persia and Sunnis from Turan (Central Asia). Both Hindus (Rajputs
from Rajasthan and north India under Akbar and the Marathas from west
India from Shah Jahan's reign onwards) and Muslims (mostly Afghans who
settled in the subcontinent, i.e., Bihar during the Delhi Sultanate) from India
were recruited in the army. Rather than the region's level of monetization, it
was politics and the cultural ethos that dominated payment of the soldiery
(especially the higher ranks). Military service was regarded as a means of
becoming a landholder or to expand one's patrimony. Hence, payment in
kind, i.e., land (except in the case of Sher Shah, an aberration in medieval
India), remained dominant in the period under review.
However, foreign and indigenous mercenaries and especially footmen
were paid in cash for most of the time. Even in the heyday of the mansabdari
system, the professional mercenary form of military employment continued.
The Mogul army from Babur to Aurangzeb was dependent on the foreign pro-
fessional mercenaries for manufacturing and manning gunpowder weapons
during both battles and sieges. From Babur to Akbar, the dependence was
on the Ottomans and Persians, and under Aurangzeb the Moguls relied on
west European Christians. The latter development was due to a global shift
in the eighteenth century, when western Europe became most advanced in
the production and deployment of cannons, howitzers, and mortars. In the
eighteenth century, the mansabdari system was replaced by the regimental
system, the latter being characterized by regular cash payment, written
regulations, and strict discipline. That, however, is a different story.
On the Ottoman janissaries
(fourteenth-nineteenth centuries)
Gilles Veinstein
The janissaries are probably one of the most famous military corps in world
history. Nevertheless, they were only a part of the Ottoman army and not
even the most numerous one. At any period in the Ottoman history they
coexisted with a series of other military units, some of them created earlier
(hence the name oiyeni geri, meaning "new troops"), others emerging in
later times. All of these corps were of different natures as regards their
modes of recruitment, the status of their members, their specific role in
war, their method of remuneration, and so on. I shall concentrate on the
corps (ocak) of the janissaries. 1 Over several centuries, they were both a
cause of terror and a source of admiration for the West, but they were also
a danger for the Ottoman rulers themselves, due to their tendency to rebel.
Beyond these stereotypes, one has to keep in mind that they did not offer
only one face during all their long history. On the contrary, they were in a
process of constant change, especially as far as their recruitment sources
and military value were concerned.
Origins
The janissaries were established in the second half of the fourteenth cen-
tury, probably under the reign of Sultan Murad I (there is some discussion
on this point as well as on the origins of the corps in general, which remain
somewhat obscure). 2
1 General works on this corps include: Weissman, Les janissaires; Uzungarfili, Osmanli devteti
teskildtmdan kapu kulu ocaklan; Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 7500-1700, pp. 43-49, "Yeni qeri";
Veinstein, "Le janissaire etl'islamologue". Among the main sources that I shall refer to, I would
also like to mention Petrosian, Meferfe-/ kanun-iyenigeri ocagi tarihi; Petrosian gives the Russian
translation and the facsimile of the manuscript of St Petersburg, cited below as Kavdnin; for the
Turkish edition of another copy of this work, see Akgiindiiz, "Kavanin-i yeniceriyan-i dergah-i
ali". On this work, see Fodor, "Bir Nasihatname olarak 'kavanin-i yeniceriyan'".
2 Palmer, "The Origin of the Janissary"; Papoulia, Ursprung und Wesen der Knabenlese im
osmanischen Reich, pp. 74ft (reviewed by I. Beldiceanu-Steinherr in Revue des etudes islamiques,
36, 1 (1968), pp. 172-176); Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "La conquete d'Andrinople par les turcs"; Kaldy-
Nagy, "The First Centuries of the Ottoman Military Organization".
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From the beginning, the janissary corps was an infantry unit and a standing
army (which not all the infantry components of the Ottoman army were).
Furthermore, its members were not free men. They were slaves, even if of
a particular kind: they were slaves of the sultan (kapi kulu, hiinkdr kulu). I
shall return to the origins of these slaves. Initially, they were not allowed
to get married. 3 Later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, this ban
would be abolished by Sultan Selim I. From then on, there would be two
kinds of janissaries, married ones and bachelors. Only the latter would
continue to live in the rooms {odd) of the barracks. There is no doubt that
this change was of great consequence for the nature of this army. In any
case, it remained common for the janissaries to be attracted to young boys
and, more particularly, according to certain sources to youngjewish boys. 4
Of course, it is always better not to generalize in such matters.
Evolution
If we try to define their military role more precisely, we must underline the
fact that it evolved significantly over time. The janissaries were not, at the
beginning, the most efficient part of the army nor the true instrument of
the Ottoman conquest that they would become later on. Initially, they were
mostly imperial bodyguards who aimed to protect the sovereign and to give
a public image of his power and wealth during ceremonies, very much in the
ancient tradition of the slave guards of the Muslim princes. 5 The janissaries
never lost this part of their duties. Testimonies from different periods are
available showing that they made a strong impression on ambassadors and
other foreign visitors with their splendid, brightly coloured uniforms and
their perfect discipline when they entered the second yard of the Topkapi
Palace for official receptions. 6
They continued to be bound by a close personal tie to the sultan, under
whose direct patronage they always remained. One small manuscript in
the Vienna Library is interesting in painting a vivid picture of the close
relationship between the sultan, in this case Suleyman the Magnificent,
and his janissaries: on the janissaries' side, they hold the deepest reverence
which did not prevent them from making repeated and excessive financial
3 According to a proverb, a married man is not a kul for the sultan: Kavdnin, fol. iov.
4 See, for instance, Capsali, Seder Elyahu Zuta, I, p. 82.
5 Bosworth, "Ghulam", parts I, "The Caliphate" and II, "Persia".
6 See, among many examples, Fresne-Canaye, Le voyage du Levant, p. 62.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
117
demands; on the sultan's side, there is an authority which, under certain
circumstances, may become unyielding, but which also gives rise, at other
times, to a smiling humour, almost friendly, and even at times indulging
in jokes. 7
The importance of the janissaries in the military field would increase
dramatically, in connection with two factors: first, they became a decisive
tool in siege warfare, thanks to their specific ability to act as a monolithic
and compact block in the final assault. The second and probably even
more decisive factor was, following the example of the Balkan armies,
the progressive adoption of firearms, more precisely the musket (tiifeng),
instead of traditional weapons, in particular bows and arrows, starting
from the beginning of the fifteenth century. In the Ottoman rulers' mind,
the use of this new and revolutionary weapon was intended to remain the
monopoly of the janissaries, in connection - one can imagine - with their
status as a standing army under the direct supervision of the sovereign,
which gave better opportunities for both training and control. An instruc-
tor in chief (ta'Umhdneciba§i) was appointed by the sultan. In fact this
monopoly quickly became obsolete, and firearms circulated among much
larger sections of the population, partly because of quarrels between the
various members of the Ottoman dynasty. 8
The number of janissaries equipped with firearms (tiifenkli, tiifenk-enddz)
began to increase under the reign of Mehmed II, and this continued under
the subsequent reigns. As for the reign of Suleyman the Magnificent, it is not
clear whether the tiifenk-enddz were more numerous or even whether the
use of tiifenk was generalized among the janissaries. The same sultan was
also famous for having expanded the state arms factories. In any case, the
adoption of firearms was the Ottoman response to the military evolution
of its enemies, especially the Habsburg troops, who proved to be terribly
efficient with their excellent guns made in Germany.
We have no details on the process of the adoption of firearms and we
know nothing about the reception of this innovation by the troops, who
had already demonstrated their corporatist mind as well as their propensity
to mutiny. 9 It remains striking in this respect that, as late as the year 1551,
Suleyman considered it necessary to request the aga, the head of the janis-
7 Vienna, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Turkish Manuscripts, no. 1815, Kdnundme-i
Sultan Siileymdn (Fliigel, III, p. 250) [henceforth, Kdnunndme].
8 Turan, Sehzdde Bayezid Vak'asi, pp. 83-96; Inalcik, "The Socio-Political Effects of the Dif-
fusion of Fire-Arms in the Middle East".
9 We cannot consider the success of this change of arms as obvious if we bear in mind what
the Habsburg ambassador, Busbecq, wrote about the failure of the vizier Rustem Pasha when
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saries, to train his men, so that - the sultan says - "they will become experts
in the use of the musket". 10 Equally striking is the fact that the sultan is said
to have been anxious, at each of his visits to the barracks of the janissaries,
to see all the officers shooting, according to their hierarchical order, in the
training area, luxuriously laid out by the same sultan. 11 In this context, the
act of shooting appears both as a game and as a kind of rite, expressing the
close relationship between the sultan and his slaves.
At this stage of their evolution, the janissaries were no longer only the
personal escort of the sultan. They also became the main factor in the
Ottomans' military superiority. They took part in all the main campaigns,
both on land and at sea, even in the absence of their patron, the sultan.
In the same way, they were the elite of the fortress garrisons, scattered
throughout the empire.
To this evolution corresponds a spectacular increase in their numbers.
Let me give some figures to give an idea of the corps' size.
Figures
However hypothetical they may be, the oldest figures remained low:
2,000 men in 1389, at the Battle of Kosovo; 3,000 under the reign of Murad II,
in the first half of the fifteenth century. Later, they would increase from
5,000 to 10,000 men, during the reign of Mehmed II, the Conqueror (fdtih),
in the second half of the fifteenth century. This increase would have taken
place in particular during Mehmed's wars with the Akkoyunlu sultan Uzun
Hasan in the 1470s. The result was reached partly by the incorporation
into the initial janissary corps of two new components that had existed
independently until then, and that were devoted to the sultan's hunting
activity: the sekban or seymen and the zagarci, all men in charge of the
royal hounds. This explains the puzzling fact that several of the highest
officers of the ocak retained designations in connection with hounds: such
were the sekban ba§i, the zagarci bast, the turnaci ba§i, the samsuncu bast.
Still later, under Mehmed's son, Bayezid II, the number of the janissaries
would reach 13,000. To this end, Bayezid created a new section of the ocak:
he tried in 1548 to arm with pistols 200 horsemen who were his own kuls; see Turkish Letters,
pp. 123-124.
10 "Yenicerim kullarim tiifenk atmaga idman eylemelerin emr ediib...": Tokapi Sarayi Miizesi
Kiitiiphanesi, Manuscript KK888, doc. no. 30.
11 Kdnunndme, fols 13-16.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
119
the so-called companies of the aga {aga boliikleri). Nevertheless, this peak
was followed by a marked decrease just before Suleyman's reign, but things
would change significantly during his long tenure (1520-1566), at the end of
which their numbers stabilized at some 13,000 men, 12 a very high level for a
standing army of the time. Nevertheless, one of the most recent historians
of Ottoman warfare, Rhoads Murphey, has dwelt on the fact that, at any
one time, only a portion of the total ranks were actually deployed at the
front, the rest being confined to barracks in Istanbul or dispatched among
the provincial garrisons. 13
General organization and command
Before going further, let us have a glimpse at the general organization of
the janissary corps and its terminology: its structures reflect its complex
formation. It consists of three main components: the so-called cema'at,
which is composed of 101 regiments of sekban or seymen. Consequently the
total number of the orta (also called boliik) amounted to 196 (which became
195, when Murad IV decided to disband the sixty-fifth orta, considered to
be responsible for Osman II 's assassination). At the head of each orta was
a gorbaci (literally a "soup maker"). Another name for the chiefs of the
regiments of the cema'at wasyayaba§i or serpiydde ("chief of the infantry-
men"). Each gorbaci had a lieutenant (oda kethiiddsi or ba§odaba§i) under
his orders, as well as a set of odaba§i ("chiefs of barrack-rooms"). An imam
and a scribe were also available in each regiment.
At the head of the ocak in its entirety was the "aga of the janissaries"
(yenigeri agasi). Originally, he was chosen from among the members of
the corps, but after Selim I's reforms he was one of the high dignitaries of
the Palace and, once appointed, he became the first of the so-called rikdb
agalari ("agas of the stirrup"). He depended directly on the sultan, with
whom he had a close relationship. He had his own palace in the vicinity
of the Siileymaniye mosque; he led his own council, the so-called yenigeri
divdm. This council included the five highest officers of the corps, four of
them mentioned above in connection with hounds and hunting: the aga's
lieutenant (kuL kethiiddsi); the chief of the sekbdn who, at the time, was the
supreme commander of the corps; the zagarci ba§i; the samsuncu ba§i; and
the turnaci ba§i. Each of these high officers was at the same time chief of a
12 Murphey, Ottoman Warfare, 7500-7700, p. 45.
13 Ibid., p. 47.
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particular orta. Among the other high officers who were not members of the
divan, let me mention the muhziraga ("bailiff aga"), who was the intermedi-
ary between the ocak and the grand vizier; the big and the little hdsseki who
were dispatched to the provinces to deal with questions concerning the
corps; the ba§ gavu§ ("chief of the sergeants") who checked the execution
of the decisions and supervised the incorporation of new recruits.
Finally, the ocak had its own bureaucracy headed by the yenic eri efendisi
("secretary of the janissaries"). He held the pay rolls (kotiik) and was the
chief of the aga's chancery.
Increase in membership and subsequent decline
After Suleyman's era, starting from the reign of his grandson, Murad III,
the number of janissaries increased dramatically and constantly. At the
same time, standards of recruitment became more and more slack and
the origins of the recruits much more diversified. The recruitment of new
janissaries was hence no longer limited to slaves of the sultan nor, according
to a tradition that had been established quite early on, to sons of janissaries.
From now on, all kinds of foreigners (ecnebi) and "intruders" (saplama),
including Turks, got access to the ocak, against the fundamental regulations.
Thus, the corps lost its former homogeneity, which was, according to several
of the authors of "books of advice" (nasihatndme), a cause of its decline.
The same authors attributed these transformations - so reprehensible in
their eyes - to the sovereigns' slovenliness and blindness. Nevertheless,
as Murphey underlines, there is another possible interpretation of their
behaviour: they would have been trying to meet growing military needs
in the face of more and more powerful adversaries. Be that as it may, the
burden became heavier and heavier for the Treasury. In 1574, the janissaries
numbered 13,600; they amounted to 35,000 in 1597, 37,600 in 1609, and
39,470 in 1670. The numbers reached 53,000 at the beginning of the eight-
eenth century, at a time when the corps had lost all military efficiency. 14
They remained merely a mighty pressure group in the state and society,
as well as a terrible drag on the public finances, all the more so because,
starting from 1740, Sultan Mahmud I, desperately searching for money,
legalized the marketing of certificates (esdme) which gave the bearer the
right to collect janissary wages. This period is generally considered to be the
time of decay and corruption of the janissaries. The corps played a central
14 Aksan, "Whatever Happened to the Janissaries?"
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
121
role in the overthrow of the reforming sultan, Selim III, in 1808. As a result,
his successor, Sultan Mahmud II, decided to abolish the corps in 1826, as a
necessary precondition to the introduction of Westernizing reforms in the
army. When the janissaries rose in revolt against this decision, the sultan
had his artillery shoot them to pieces in their barracks on 18 June 1826, an
incident known in Turkish history as the "auspicious event" (vakayi hayriye).
After this general background, let me try to define the corps according
to the criteria to be considered in the framework of our research program.
A sultan's army
The janissaries were clearly a state commission army or, to be more ac-
curate, a sultan's army. Since their origin, they were intended for the sultan's
exclusive use and put under his direct patronage. Even in the later period,
when they became a part of the state apparatus and one military institu-
tion among others, although the sovereign no longer took part in military
campaigns in person, they kept some of their close ties with him. The fact,
for example, that we come across sultanic orders concerning janissaries or
janissaries' cadets (who will be discussed below), including orders deal-
ing with very minor affairs, which are not ordinary fermans but edicts of
the highest rank (hatt-i hiimdyun, which means that they were issued on
the basis of a personal note written by the sultan with his own hand on
the paper of the initial request), is significant: it is an expression of the
exceptional status of these kuls. 15
Pencyek and dev§irme
At the beginning, starting from the fourteenth century, the members of
the corps originated from a single source, the pencyek. 16 This Persian term
(Arabic: khums) refers to the fifth part of the booty gathered during the raids
and the fights against the infidels - the part which, according to Islamic law,
15 See, for example, an order following a petition concerning the graduation of janissaries'
cadets working in the Ibrahim Pasha Palace in Istanbul, with the note "hatt-i hiimayunumla
fermdmm olmushdur" ("it was ordered with a note of my own majestic writing"): Istanbul,
Basbakanlik Ottoman Arsivleri, Miihimme Defteri [henceforth, MD], LXIV, p. 42.
16 Beldiceanu-Steinherr, "En marge d'un acte concernant le pengyek et les aqinci". The author
gives an edition of the important regulation, referred to below, extracted from Bibliotheque
nationale de France, fonds turc ancient 81, fol. 97r-v.
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GILLES VEINSTEIN
belongs to the sovereign. This booty includes, among other goods, captives
who were automatically enslaved by those who took them (unless they
were intended to be ransomed). In fact, it appears that this pencyek could
take two different forms, according to the period and the circumstances.
On the one hand, it could be a simple tax of 25 akge (silver coins), a sum
corresponding to the fifth part of the average value of a slave (i.e., 125 akge).
This tax was levied at the frontier, at the point of the slaves' entrance into
Ottoman territories. In this form, the pencyek survived, with or without the
name, until the nineteenth century. On the other hand, the pencyek was
nothing but the requisition, mainly on behalf of the sultan, of all the young
male captives, between ten and seventeen years old (occasionally even older,
but in that case the sultan had to pay for them), who had been enslaved in
raids and who presented the required features of robustness, soundness,
and physical integrity. The sources describing this second aspect of the
pencyek, crucial for the janissaries' history, are rare. The most developed
and explicit one is a relatively late edict issued by Sultan Bayezid II in 1493,
which nevertheless, as the text points out, reformulates older provisions.
On another side, this edict takes into consideration only those captives who
were caught during raids launched in the enemy territory. Nevertheless,
we know that the same kind of young captives were also taken in other
contexts as well: successful sieges or pitched battles; likewise a portion of
these captives - and, indeed, the best portion - was the sultan's own loot.
As a consequence of the nature of the pencyek, the janissaries were
initially recruited among foreign, non-Muslim young boys (it was forbidden
by shari'a to enslave Muslims, except in extraordinary cases of judiciary
punishment). It corresponded exactly to the so-called mamluk paradigm as
it had been in force in the Muslim world since the Abbasid era. 17 According
to this paradigm, which corresponds to a specific kind of military slavery,
the aim was not to enslave already mature and experienced soldiers, but to
search for untrained and inexperienced young boys who would not only be
enslaved and forcibly converted but also systematically trained in special-
ized schools. Some historians, such as D. Ayalon and E. de la Vaissiere,
assumed, more or less explicitly, that such schools may have originated
from Central Asian models. It is worth noting that in the account of the
origins of the janissaries by the earliest Ottoman chroniclers, in the second
17 Ayalon, "Preliminary Remarks on the Mamluk Military Institution in Islam"; Crone, Slaves on
Horses; Pipes, Slaves, Soldiers and Islam. For a critical discussion, see La Vaissiere, Samarcande
et Samarra.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
123
half of the fifteenth century, 18 this new unit appears as nothing more than
the byproduct of the establishment of the pencyek levies a century before.
Much more specific to the Ottoman case was the other method of acquir-
ing new janissaries, which apparently was inaugurated a few decades after
the institution of the pencyek. This second method partly replaced the first
one after a time of coexistence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It
was called devsirme, a Turkish term meaning "collecting" or "gathering", by
reference to the levy of young boys, who were no longer foreign captives
caught in the raids, but Christian subjects of the sultan. They were dhimmt,
non-Muslim proteges of the sultan, who had lived in his European provinces.
Later on, the same practice was also put in force in Anatolia. Young Muslims,
especially Turks, were categorically excluded from the devsirme, with the
exception of Muslim Bosnians who, for reasons that are not totally clear,
were eligible for the system. 19
The earliest mentions of devsirme operations go as far back as the very end
of the fourteenth century. 20 Nevertheless, the practice seems to have become
more regular starting from the second quarter of the fifteenth century,
under the reign of Murad II. In spite of attempts to justify this institution
from a legal and religious point of view, 21 it was an obvious violation of
two fundamental provisions of shari'a: on the one hand, it implied the
enslavement of dhimmt subjects; on the other, the levy was followed by
a forcible conversion, since all these Christian boys entering the sultan's
service had to become Muslims.
Volunteers or not?
Under such conditions, it seems at first glance completely unnecessary
to ask whether these future soldiers were volunteers or not. Clearly, the
young captives, entering the sultan's service as part of his pencyek, were
not volunteers. As for the devsirme, records are extant of attempts to escape
the requisition by flight or concealment of the boys, at the approach of the
18 Giese, Die altosmanische Chronik des 'Aslkpasaza.de, Die altosmanischen anonymen Chroni-
ken Tevdrih-iAl-i 'Os man..
19 Menage, "Devshirme", and Inalcik, "Ghulam. Ottoman Empire"; Menage, "Sidelights on the
Devshirme"; Ozcan, "Devsirme"; Papoulia, Ursprung und Wesen der Knabenlese in osmanischen
Reich; Petrosian, "The Mabda-i Kanuni yeniceri ocagi Tarihi on the System of Devsirme".
20 Vryonis, "Isidore Glabas and the Turkish Devshirme"; Demetriades, "Some Thoughts on the
Origins of the Devsirme".
21 See Wittek, "Devshirme and Shari'a".
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GILLES VEINSTEIN
recruiting commissioners, or by corruption of these agents. Again, on the
way from their homeland to Istanbul, some boys tried to run away; this
was also the case at their arrival in the capital, where the forced conversion
and the dispatching of the recruits took place. Later, in the first stages of
the process of formation that I shall describe below, such attempts still
occurred. 22
Nevertheless, the question is more complex. If there is no doubt that the
dev§irme was generally very unpopular, not to say that it was considered
to be one of the darkest aspects of the Turkish yoke (as is obvious from
Balkan literature and folklore), 23 on the other side, it remains true that
for poor people, mostly peasants, it was also gateway to a better life, with
better incomes and a better social position, in spite of the strain and the
danger. It was true for a simple janissary, and much more so for the cream
of the kuls, who could reach the highest positions in the state apparatus.
As a consequence of these realities, some people who, being Muslims, were
not eligible for the dev§irme, made efforts to enter fraudulently, to the great
displeasure of the authorities. It is also true that when people, after the
preliminary stages, became full members of the corps, they do not seem
to have been inclined to desert. In other words, if there was constraint, it
finally turned into a form of acceptance. I shall return to possible explana-
tions for this acceptance.
Moreover, with time, and this evolution can be traced as early as the
beginning of the sixteenth century, not all the janissaries were the products
of coercion, as in the pencyek or the dev§irme institutions. Specifically, as
already mentioned, sons of janissaries (kuloglus) started being introduced
into the corps, and the same was applied for young Muslims adopted by
janissaries (veledeshes). 24 Likewise, the aga, head of the corps, was allowed
to incorporate a number of proteges. In all these cases, entering the corps
became a voluntary act.
In the same way, for the people who, according to Mustafa Ali, were
admitted in the corps, by the will of Murad III in 1582 on the occasion of the
great circumcision feasts of his son Mehmed, this admission was a favour
and by no means a requirement. With all these changes in the recruitment
methods, janissaries passed progressively from forced recruits to volunteers.
22 See, for instance, Istanbul, Bas, bakanhk Ottoman Ar§ ivleri, MD, III, p. 509, no. 1514; VI, p. 135,
no. 284; IX, p. 14; XXI, p. 145; XXX, p. 108.
23 See, for example, Georgieva, "Le role des janissaires dans la politique ottomane en les terres
bulgares".
24 Kaldy-Nagy, "The Strangers (ecnebiler) in the 16th Century Ottoman Military Organization".
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
125
Searching for the janissaries' identity
However, it remains true that, during the most glorious period of the
empire's history, mainly during the fifteenth and the first part of the
sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman conquest, so loudly praised as a triumph
of Islam, was in fact largely operated by men of Christian origin. If this
paradox was already encapsulated in the "mamluk paradigm", it takes a
particularly striking shape in the janissaries' case, since a major part of
the conquests concerned were to the detriment of Christian lands. When
historians look for an explanation of this paradox, it seems that they have
to address the various components of the specific culture of the ocak. All
of them converge into the making of a new identity, strong and satisfying
enough to substitute for the old one (without erasing it altogether). 25 At the
root of this identity was an esprit de corps, which is certainly shared by all
corps but which, in this case, reached the highest degree for three reasons
at least: a sharp consciousness of being part of a military elite in a close
relationship with the sovereign and responsible for the empire's greatness;
a common initiation into a rich corpus of symbols (for example, each orta
had its own emblem) at work, in a series of rites, ceremonies, and feasts; and
the prominent influence of Bektashism, a syncretic form of Islam. The close
tie, even the symbiotic connection, between the ocak and this Ottoman
Sufi order (tarikat) is well known, even if the exact chronology, causes, and
conditions of the interface between the two communities are not altogether
clear. Obviously, for chronological reasons, the tradition of the creation of
the ocak by the "saint", Haci Bektash Veli, founder of the order, cannot be
anything but a legitimizing legend. As a matter of fact, it is not even certain
that the Bektashi impact moulded the corps from its very origin. The official
affiliation came relatively late, not before the year 1591, during the reign
of Murad III. Starting from that time, the great master of the order (baba)
became the gorbaci of the ninety-ninth orta, and Bektashi dervishes were
incorporated into the ocak where they became highly influential in every
field, offering spiritual guidance to the soldiers. 26
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that syncretic beliefs existed in the reli-
gion of the janissaries a long time before the end of the sixteenth century,
as it existed in the early stages of Ottoman history in general. Perhaps we
have an echo of these beliefs, as they were in force in the second half of the
25 Uzuncarsih, Osmanli devleti te§kildtmdan kapu kulu ocaklart , I, pp. 26-28; Vatin and
Veinstein, "Paroles d'oglan, jeunes esclaves de la Porte".
26 Kiiciikyalcin, Turna'nm Kalbi, pp. 111-120.
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GILLES VEINSTEIN
fifteenth century, in the puzzling description of Islam which is to be found
in the first pages of the "memoirs of the Serbian janissary", Konstantin
Mihailovic. 27 A prominent place is given to 'Ali, the Prophet's cousin and
son-in-law, whom he would have explicitly designated as his successor
(in fact, he is always mentioned in the giilbank, the specific prayers of the
janissaries). These Shiite features would be confirmed later by a special
reverence, not only for Ali and his holy sword, called Zulfikar, but also for
his two martyr sons, Hasan and Hiiseyn. At the same time, Konstantin also
quoted Muslim preachers who combined an expected harshness against
Christians with a more surprising love for Christ. In their view, Jesus had
not been crucified, a lookalike being killed instead. "Jesus is of God's spirit
but Mohammed is God's emissary", they say, along with, "What is Moham-
med's will that is also Jesus'?" This reverence for Christ was interpreted as a
consequence of the Christian origin of most of the janissaries at that time,
but a definitive conclusion on the question remains out of reach. Anyway,
it is not certain that it persisted in the later periods, while Shiite inspiration
definitely did. How could Ottoman power, having been transformed into a
champion of Sunnism in the meantime, tolerate this deviation in its military
elite? It is another paradox of the janissaries. Maybe the fact that this Shiite
imprint was nevertheless encapsulated in a tarikat, which obviously was a
heterodox one, but at the same time firmly controlled by the state, by means
of its centralization and hierarchical structure, made things easier. 28 Be that
as it may, a degree of Shiism remained one of the peculiarities of the ocak's
culture as well as a unifying factor for its members.
Slaves paid in silver
As I noted at the beginning, janissaries were not free men. They were slaves
and remained so all their life. Their patron, the Ottoman sultan, never
emancipated them (or very exceptionally, as a reward for extraordinary
acts), in contrast to the mamluk sultans of Egypt who solemnly emancipated
their own mamluks at the end of their training period in the barracks of
the citadel of Cairo. At any rate, they were slaves, but slaves of the sultans,
which made a big difference in comparison to ordinary slaves. As several
Western travellers noticed, there was not a more honourable position in
27 Mihailovic, Memoirs of a Janissary, pp. 3-27; the French translation is Mihailovic, Memoires
d'un janissaire.
28 Faroqhi, "Conflict, Accommodation and Long-Time Survival", pp. 19-20.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
127
the empire than to be slave of the sultan. The kul elite (of course, neither
simple janissaries nor the corps officers but kuls who had become governors
or viziers) married princesses of the reigning dynasty. They were never sold
to private persons and were thus not in danger of being used for menial
tasks. Not only could they exert the highest functions, but they were also in
a position to accumulate greater or lesser fortunes and, according to their
status, totally or partly bequeath them to their heirs.
All these slaves were paid in silver money by the Treasury. This point may
explain - at least in part - the fact that the Ottoman beys took some time to
adopt a troop of this type, even though it was a piece of their Islamic inherit-
ance: they needed to have reached a sufficient measure of monetization. As
a matter of fact none of the previously established other troops were paid
in money. As for the janissaries, the initial pay ('ulufe) was 2 akge per diem.
But this amount, still very modest indeed, increased with time, through a
succession of augmentations (terakki), and could reach 12 akge for a simple
soldier. The concrete mechanism of these increases is not altogether clear:
we cannot determine the roles of the military value to be rewarded and
stimulated, of the length of service, or of favouritism. Officers' wages were
much higher. The aga's reached the enormous amount of 400 akge daily. It
is possible to see how the amounts varied through the numerous payroll
muster lists (mevdcib defteri) kept in the archives. 29
Janissaries were paid in regular quarterly instalments, in solemn cer-
emonies in the second yard of the Topkapi Palace. As for the provincial
garrisons, their wages were transported across the country with a security
guard. Nevertheless, this precious load was sometimes attacked by bandits
- this could happen even at the apogee of the empire, during Suleyman's
reign. 30 Any shortcoming in these payments (as occurred in the so-called
sivi§ years, the "effaced" years resulting from the gap between the solar
and the lunar calendars) 31 or any adulteration of the distributed money
led to riots among the troops. Besides these regular wages, they received a
special bonus (bakh§i§) at every new enthronement. Extraordinary grants
were also expected during the campaigns, as an incitement or a reward. To
neglect these traditional grants was a serious risk for the sultan. Selim II
experienced the consequences when he refused to give the bakh§i§ to the
janissaries at the beginning of his reign, as did Osman II who, among other
29 Darling, "Ottoman Salary Registers as a Source for Economic and Social History".
30 Barkan, "H. 974-975 (M. 1567-1568) Mali bir Yilina ait bir Osmanh Biitcesi".
31 Sahillioglu, "Osmanh Imparatorlugunda Sivis, Y1I1 Burhanlan".
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GILLES VEINSTEIN
foolish mistakes, was not generous enough during the Polish campaign,
resulting in his being deposed and in the end in his death. 32
These official allocations were not the only source of income for the
janissaries. It is well known that they were also involved in craft and com-
mercial activities, mainly in the capital itself and also in the various cities
where they were sent (as a way of getting rid of them in troubled times).
Contrary to what has often been put forward, this passage from military to
economic activities did not occur exclusively during the period of decline.
It already existed in former centuries. However, in these earlier periods,
crafts and trades were only occupations during the winter or the intervals
of peace, 33 and not a substitute for military involvement, as it became the
case later on. From this point on, close ties were created between the ocak
and the guilds of the capital.
Consequently, janissaries succeeded in accumulating properties that
they left to their heirs. The countless probate inventories of janissaries,
which are to be found in the kadi registers of many cities, provide precise
data on this point. Both soldiers and businessmen - in proportions varying
according to the period - could join a quite prosperous urban middle class. 34
Trainees without much training
Returning to the military activity of the janissaries, the question arises
as to what extent they have to be considered true professional militaries,
who are not only endowed with a practical experience of the job but who
had been systematically trained in a preliminary stage of education, as the
"mamluk paradigm" postulated it.
According to my sources, at the very beginning, the boys recruited in the
framework of the pencyekwere directly assigned to the janissary corps with
an initial wage of 2 akge per diem. In other words, they were immediately
operational without a preliminary training period. 35 However, this situation
did not last. A few decades later, a new corps was established, the so-called
'acemi oglan (literally "the foreign boys") based in the harbour of Gelibolu
(Gallipoli) on the Dardanelles. A second branch of this corps, much larger
32 Vatin and Veinstein, Le serail ebranle, pp. 221-224, 338-340.
33 Murphey, "Yeni ceri". On the relationships between the janissaries and the corporations
(esndf), see Kafadar, "Yeniceri-Esnaf Relations".
34 Barkan, "Edirne Askeri Kassamina ait Tereke Defterleri"; Oztiirk, Askeri kassama ait
onyedinci asir Istanbul tereke defterleri.
35 Kavdnin, fol. 4v.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
129
in number, would be created in Istanbul, following the conquest of the city.
The 'acemi oglan was meant to be a preliminary stage in janissary training.
From now on, it was no longer possible to enter the corps immediately. One
had to be an 'acemi oglan first.
Before examining what the real function of this cadet corps was, I have
to mention another preliminary stage, an initial one, which took place
between the levy as pencyek or dev§irme boy and the incorporation into
the 'acemi oglan. This first stage was carried out in the countryside, among
Turkish farmers (Turk iizerinde olmak). The principle was to establish the
young recruits "overseas", so that no flight to their homelands - a common
temptation - was possible. That means that Rumelian boys were sent to
Anatolia. Logically, the reverse (Anatolian boys sent to Rumelia) must have
been true, but I have not come across evidence for this. This stay in the
countryside was of quite a long duration: four to eight years, according to
the sources. Nevertheless, it could be shortened when boys were needed for
an urgent task in the capital. This rural stage did not exist initially and is
said to have been established by Mehmed II. 36 A first aim was to make the
boys stronger by using them in hard labour, as well as to accustom them to
obedience and submission, but another important goal, which Mehmed II
would have had in mind, was to allow them to learn Turkish. Consequently,
'acemi oglan and janissaries would speak Turkish (certainly, writing in
Turkish was another story, and the janissaries' literacy another question).
According to some sources, the rural stage was also an opportunity for
those converted to be initiated into the basis of their new religion (even
if Anatolian peasantry were not an authority in these matters). It appears
that this period staying "among the Turks" did not survive as long as the
dev§irme system: it was no longer in force after the dev§irme campaigns of
1622 and 1636. 37
Now, if we come back to the 'acemi oglan, we are naturally inclined
to consider the period spent in this body of cadets as a time of military
preparation and training. Consequently, the fate of an 'acemi oglan would be
necessarily to become a full janissary. As a matter of fact, they are frequently
called yeniceri oglanlari (or in Persian gilmdn-iyenigeriydn), which means
boys who are janissaries-to-be. Consequently, all studies on the janissaries,
including the most recent ones, consider the 'acemi oglan to be a cadet corps
36 Ibid., fol. 7r.
37 Uzungar^ili, Osmanti devteti te§kUdtmdan kapu kulu ocaktari , p. 24.
130
GILLES VEINSTEIN
or trainees in connection with the janissaries. 38 However, this interpretation
needs discussion and nuancing.
First, I shall observe that the oldest traditions did not explain the creation
of the new corps in that way. The sultan took this measure - they say - first
to save money, since the initial wages of the 'acemi oglan were less than
those of the janissaries (1 akge instead of 2); secondly, because he lacked
a regular corps intended for a specific need: transporting troops in ships
from the Asiatic to the European parts of the state across the Dardanelles. 39
Now, taking these two preliminary stages into account, we can try to
evaluate the number of years coming before the proper entrance into the
janissary corps: the stay in the Turkish families is said to last possibly seven
or eight years. Afterwards, the time spent as an 'acemi oglan is said to be
about five to ten years. Thus, the total time of these preliminary stages
would be from twelve to eighteen years. According to the "treaties of advice"
(naslhatname) of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period
of fifteen to twenty years was an optimum. In one of these works, the
kitab-i mustetab, the 'acemi oglan period is presented as even longer and
divided into two parts: a six to seven-year period properly as an 'acemi
oglan, followed by a five to ten-year period as gardeners (bostancis) of the
imperial palaces.
In any case, all these figures remain highly theoretical. We know through
orders contained in the "registers of important affairs" (miihimme defteri)
that these stages could, in fact, be either shortened or extended considerably,
according to the circumstances. 40 On this point as on many others, Ottoman
authorities were fully pragmatic.
Be that as it may, it remains true that enlistment in the janissary corps
did not occur very early in a man's life. Janissaries were not young men. It is
all the more true that the dev§irme recruiters did not take the boys as young
as it is frequently assumed. According to a specific law (kanun) dedicated to
the institution, 41 the ages were between fourteen or fifteen and seventeen
or eighteen years (remembering that for the pencyek boys the age was ten
to seventeen years). In practice, the recruits could be even older; at least
this was the case in a dev§irme register of the beginning of the seventeenth
38 Still today, in the Turkish army, acemilik means the training period.
39 Kavdnin, fbl. sr.
40 For example, KK888, no. 1603; MD, VI, p. 223, no. 479; VII, p. 789, no. 2157; IX, pp. 14 and 122;
XXI, p. 145; LIII, p. 173. It remains true that, when the authorities had to urgently remove the
boys from the Turkish families, they were ordered to choose the ones who had been there for
the longest time (eski).
41 Akgiindiiz, "Kavanin-i yeniceriyan-i dergah-i ali", II, pp. 123-127.
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
131
century. 42 We find that, at that time, 80 per cent of the boys were between
fifteen and twenty and 50 per cent between eighteen and twenty years
old. If we take all these figures into account - however hypothetical they
may remain - we come to the puzzling conclusion that, when becoming a
janissary, the man was somewhere between thirty-seven and fifty years,
which is hardly believable.
Let us add here that, once a janissary, the man would spend his whole
career in the corps, unless he was upgraded to a more prestigious corps, i.e.,
one of the standing cavalry sections or one of the Palace corps, or acquired
fief (timar) in the province, which, at least in certain cases, was considered
a punishment and not a promotion. Finally, when a janissary was judged
too old (ziydde ihtiyar), exhausted, and "out of use" ('amelmande), 43 he was
retired (oturak, korucu, emekddr) and continued, as such, to belong to the
corps, being given a pension. Such a pension (pturaklik) was also given to a
soldier who became ill, disabled, or insane. The marked reverence for the
old retired soldiers, among the members, can be counted among the signs
of this esprit de corps that I emphasized above.
If there was a long time between the first recruitment and the final
entrance into the janissary corps (kapuya gikmak), this time does not appear
to be a time of military training sensu stricto. There was nothing to be
compared to the several-year, methodically organized training existing
in the Cairo barracks of the mamluk sultans, according to the historian
Makrizi. 44
A glance at the mamluks' training
Let us remember that in the fifteenth century, there were twelve barracks
(tibdq, pi. tabaqd) in Cairo for the education of the "royal mamluks" (al-
mamalik al-sultdniyya) who had to become first-class horsemen. Each
barrack was capable of accommodating 1,000 mamluks. There was at least
one religious man (faqih) per group of students to teach them the Qur'an,
the Arabic script, some basic knowledge of shari'a, and the Muslim prayers.
When the mamluks who had been bought quite young reached major-
ity, they started their actual military training. Each group had a cavalry
42 Istanbul, Basbakanhk Ottoman Arsivleri, Maliyeden miidevver, no. 7600.
43 Kdnunndme, fbl. i6r.
44 Ayalon, "Preliminary Remarks on the Mamluk Military Institution in Islam", pp. 9-17; Rabie,
"The Training of the Mamluk Faris".
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GILLES VEINSTEIN
[furusiyyd] instructor, a mu'allim, whose training included equestrianism,
the lance game, archery, and fencing. Tuition in horsemanship consisted
of several stages before the young man was able to sit firmly on a bareback
horse. At the beginning he practised on horse models made of dry clay,
stone, or wood. The first exercise was to jump over it correctly. Then a saddle
was placed on the model and the mamluk practised jumping without, and
then with, full equipment. In the following stage, the candidate practised
training on a live horse.
During his whole training, the mamluk was considered a simple student
(kuttdbiya) without pay or personal goods of any kind. On the other hand,
when his education was over (disregarding how many years it lasted and
what age he had reached at this point), he received, as personal property, a
horse, and clothing, as well as a set of arms (a bow, a quiver and arrows, a
sabre, and armour). From that moment on, he was a true soldier, eligible for
a wage, although it was of course the lowest one. In addition, he was given
a certificate, called 'itdqa, which is not only proof that he had become a
trained horseman but also as a mark of emancipation, since the mamluk
who at last enters the sultan's service is no longer his slave. He was a free
man even if he maintained a close link with his former patron. Thus, two
important differences with the janissaries are to be noticed: the latter
remained slaves and did not receive real military training.
Back to the Ottoman trainees
As long as the Rumelian boys lived with Anatolian Turkish families, they
had to engage in livestock farming and agriculture, both tiresome chores
(beld) which certainly made them stronger as well as more docile, giving
them the opportunity to develop qualities already taken into account by
the dev§irme recruiters upon selection. Such qualities may be necessary
preconditions of military capacity, but they are not a substitute for military
technical training. Furthermore, the 'acemi oglan stage does not seem to
offer much military training either. As a matter of fact, all these young
men were employed by the sultan, his family, and other grandees in a great
variety of tasks that had nothing to do with proper military work.
As we saw above, their initial duty was to work on the ships coming across
the Dardanelles, as well as to transport heavy material (torba hizmeti). The
same kind of tasks were ordered for the Istanbul 'acemi oglan as well, for
ships coming across the Bosphorus, carrying different sorts of provisions for
the imperial palace, such as firewood or snow collected in the mountains
ON THE OTTOMAN JANISSARIES (FOURTEENTH-NINETEENTH CENTURIES)
133
around Bursa. Domestic service in several palaces was also partly carried
out by some contingents of 'acemi oglan. Another of their major occupations
was to care for the imperial gardens in Istanbul and the surrounding areas
as well as in Edirne and its district. For instance, in 1577, some 467 'acemi
oglan were employed as gardeners in Edirne. 45 Another possible destina-
tion of the recruits, probably in connection with some inborn gifts quickly
discovered by the recruiters, was to become apprentices in the workshops
of the Palace and thus to acquire high-level skills in one of the many crafts
intended for the sultan's consumption and use. Thus in a list of 1526, we find
former dev§irme or pencyekboys in twenty-six of the forty workshops of the
Palace. 46 Likewise, when the sultan undertook the building of a new monu-
ment, either a civil or a religious one, he naturally resorted to his 'acemi
oglan. For instance, we find them on the Selimiye mosque construction in
Edirne. 47 In the same way, they contribute to shipbuilding in the shipyards
of Galata: many boys were mobilized after the destruction of the Ottoman
fleet in Lepanto. 48 The authorities had the same reaction when a big fire
devastated the capital. 49 In short, the 'acemi oglan appear to be more slave
manpower at the disposal of the sultan to meet the various needs of the
Palace and the state than a cadet corps for a professional army. A famous
passage of the third of Busbecq's Turkish Letters has to be interpreted, at
least partly, as an allusion to the 'acemi oglan: "If the State requires any work
of construction, removal, clearance or demolition, slave labour is always
employed to carry it out." 50
It is also true that a proportion of 'acemi oglan will never become janis-
saries. They will spend their entire carrier until their retirement as cadets,
though not without an increase in their daily wages in time. 'Acemi oglan
with grey hair and beards are mentioned, in particular among the garden-
ers. 51 Why this inertia in the graduation? Perhaps because they became
so good in their speciality that it would have been a pity to let them leave
their job, or simply because they were forgotten, the authorities always
remaining anxious to limit the number of janissaries, partly at least for
financial reasons.
45 MA XXX, p. 108.
46 Veinstein, "A propos des ehl-i hiref et du dev§irme".
47 MD, IX, p. 46, no. 122; XXII, p. 206.
48 "Afe kadar dolgerlikve kalafdtcdik san'atim bUiirve sa'ir tersdneye mute'allik san'at biliir oglan
var ise...": MD, X, p. 235.
49 MD, LIII, p. 173.
50 Turkish Letters, pp. 101-102.
51 MD, X, p. 158, no. 240; LVI, p. 66, no. 134: "nicesinin sag ve sakalli ankarib pir olmusdur".
134
GILLES VEINSTEIN
These assertions, however, maybe somewhat too categorical and deserve
some nuance. I cannot deny that one finds here and there some hints of
military training of the 'acemi oglan. This is the case in an important source
of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the report of Teodoro
Spandougino Cantacusino (Spandounes), according to which:
Apres qu'ilz les auront oste de ce meschant mestier, ilz leur font
apprendre a tirer de l'arc et des dards. Aprez, ils les despartent a divers
capitaines a ce qu'ilz appreignent l'exercice des armes et aulcuns d'eux
les mectent sur la mer. 52
In the same way a later traveller, Gilles Fermanel, wrote in 1630-1632:
Les Azamoglans qui sont en grand nombre, apres avoir long-temps
servy aux jardinages, estant d'aage colmpetent, sont exercez a tirer de
l'arquebuze, et apres sont faits Janisiaires. 53
Such mentions coming from Western sources are not corroborated, as far
as I know, by Ottoman sources. Moreover, the picture that they give of the
facts sounds like an attempt at rationalization, which does not correspond
to the more complex reality that I have hinted at, with a variety of situations
and fates for the boys. Be that as it may, even if some training did exist, at
least for a part of the 'acemi oglan, it was certainly but a minor part of these
state slaves' agenda.
Under these conditions, it was mainly through their experience on the
field, and the lessons given to them by their veterans, that the janissaries
learned how to fight. As a consequence, extended periods of peace, like
during some of the eighteenth century, could not help but have a negative
impact on their military value.
52 Spandouyn Cantacasin, Petit traicte de I'origine des Turcqz, p. 104.
53 Fermanel, Le voyage d'ltatie et du Levant, p. 76.
Soldiers in Western Europe, c. 1500-1790 1
Frank Tallett
Particularly after the second half of the seventeenth century, when armed
forces grew exponentially, armies typically ranked as the largest single
employers within states. Thus, soldiers constituted the most numerous
unified labour force within Europe. A consideration of troops within the
framework of labour history is accordingly both appropriate and also long
overdue, especially since in certain circumstances soldiers acted very
much like modern workers. For example, it would not be out of line to
regard military mutinies as among the largest and most effective strikes in
European history before the emergence of labour militancy associated with
the Industrial Revolution. However, generalizations about soldier-labour in
Europe during the early modern period - taken here to encompass those
decades falling roughly between 1500 and 1790 - have to be advanced cau-
tiously and hedged around with caveats. This is for three principal reasons.
First, there was considerable variety of practice both within and between
polities with regard to the employment of soldiers, which makes generaliza-
tion hazardous. Secondly, the period was characterized by considerable
changes of practice. To be sure, the notion that these changes constituted a
"military revolution", at least in the format originally proposed by Michael
Roberts in the 1950s and subsequently amended by Geoffrey Parker, has
been challenged and rejected by many specialists. But the debate over
the "military revolution" has emphasized the extent of the changes that
were taking place, though these occurred over a much longer timeframe
than Roberts and Parker envisaged, and lay as much in the areas of state
development, the economy, and the management of armies, for instance,
as in the realms of weaponry, drill, and tactics. This chapter will seek to do
justice to these changes in the space available without misrepresenting the
reality of complex and uneven developments. Thirdly, precisely because the
exploration of soldier-labour is so important and almost unprecedented, the
effort must be undertaken with care so as to avoid distorting categories and
conclusions by imprudently constructing generalizations about military
1 I wish to thankjoel Felix and Beatrice Heuser for their comments on an early draft of this
paper. I am especially grateful to John Lynn for his advice and permission to use some of the
ideas and material from his "Comments on Mercenary Military Service in Early Modern Europe",
paper presented at the IISH Conference in March 2010.
136
FRANK TALLETT
labour from the study of the civilian workforce or by too freely imposing
concepts generated by modern labour studies onto an earlier era. As military
institutions and practices are incorporated within a broader labour history,
it is important to respect the integrity of the military past. These points
need to be borne in mind not least of all with regard to the many and varied
forms of recruitment that were to be found in the early modern period.
Methods of recruitment, c. 1500-1650
To fill the ranks of their armies, early modern governments made use of a
variety of methods of recruitment, which stood on a spectrum between the
involuntary and the voluntary. In different ways, all drafted recruits forcibly
by making use of the generally accepted - if vague and ill-defined - notion
that adult male subjects had some responsibility to bear arms in defence of
their homeland. Sweden, with its tiny population (1.25 million in 1620), its
need to raise forces to defend its newly won independence from Denmark
in the sixteenth century, and its desire to pursue its bellicose ambitions in
the following century, came closest to constructing a system of universal
conscription. As a result of initiatives launched by Gustavus Vasa (1523-1560)
and developed by Gustavus Adolphus (1611-1632), lists of able-bodied males
aged over eighteen years were drawn up annually and used by conscript
commissioners to select the required number of men. Nobles, clerics, and
some peasants, as well as apprentices in the royal gardens and church
organists, were exempt from the draft. Yet the system was remarkably
wide-ranging. Almost 50,000 men were conscripted between 1626 and 1630,
and under Charles XII (1697-1718) levies were taken more than once per year.
Significantly, the conscripts could be required to serve outside their home-
land. 2 Other states, including Habsburg Spain and Brandenburg-Prussia,
considered the use of conscription, but none adopted it in a fully fledged
form until it was introduced by France in the unprecedented circumstances
of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Sweden went furthest in employing conscription, but many other poli-
ties -including towns as well as national governments - made use of the
obligation to bear arms to forcibly recruit men into militias. True, the local
nobility in Bavaria and Brandenburg hesitated at the thought of arming their
2 Glete, War and the State in Early Modern Europe, pp. 179, 189-191, 194-195, 201-206; Tallett,
War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, pp. 82-83.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
137
tenants, but elsewhere nobles and rulers had no such compunctions. 3 In
England, for example, the militia system received a new lease of life under
Henry VIII. All those with £10 in land and the equivalent in goods were
obliged to keep weapons and armour and be ready to serve the king. The
enquiry of 1552 revealed the existence of 128,250 available men, though
their military knowledge and ability to equip themselves was patchy. 4
Venice similarly rostered 20,000 militia to defend the terraferma in 1528
and a number of German states and towns reorganized their militias for
local defence in the crisis years of the Reformation and the Thirty Years
War. 5 In practice, militias proved to be of dubious military value. Poorly
equipped and lacking training, they were unable to confront professional
forces, and their reluctance to serve away from their immediate locality
further restricted their usefulness. However, as we shall see, after c. 1650
they would be reconfigured by inventive rulers who employed militias to
bulk out their regular forces.
Governments also forcibly drafted men whom they regarded as harmful
to society or otherwise useless. This was not a novel expedient: up to 12 per
cent of men serving in English forces between 1339 and 1361 may have been
criminals. 6 On average, the English crown recruited 6,500 men annually for
overseas service between 1585 and 1602, many of them ne'er-do-wells. 7 The
Tudor administration in Ireland was especially keen to encourage social and
economic stability by freeing the body politic of undesirables. It periodically
emptied the prisons of Ulster, leaving the province "in more complete peace
and obedience than has ever been seen since the Conquest", according to
one seventeenth-century English administrator. 8 Similarly, the republic of
Genoa enlisted Corsican bandits, although it did promise a pardon at the
end of their service. 9 However, the impressment of dissolute persons should
not be exaggerated and probably looms larger in the historiography than
is warranted. 10 Rogues, vagabonds, and criminals made bad soldiers, and
commanders were reluctant to have too many in their forces. Sir Francis de
3 Schnitter, Volkund Landesdefension, pp. 123-130.
4 Goring, "The Military Obligations of the English People", pp. 112-137, "The General Proscrip-
tion of 1552". See also Fissel, English Warfare, 7577-7642, pp. 61-66.
5 Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State, p. 353; Albert, "Staat
und Gesellschaft, 1500-1745", pp. 11, 591.
6 Hewitt, The Organization of War under Edward III, pp. 29-30.
7 Hammer, Elizabeth's Wars, pp. 245-247.
8 Quoted in O'Reilly, "The Irish Mercenary Tradition in the 1600s", p. 390.
9 Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, II, p. 749.
10 See the exaggerated comment in Motley, A History of the United Netherlands, IV, p. 69, for
example.
138
FRANK TALLETT
Vere was accordingly "careful to send them back again" to England from his
command in the Netherlands when he discovered their origins. 11 However,
governments in the eighteenth century would make increased use of their
power to draft such men in their efforts to find recruits for their burgeoning
armies.
Standing somewhere between voluntary and involuntary forms of
recruitment was what might best be termed the quasi-feudal system. The
socio-cultural identity of the nobility remained bound up with military
endeavour, and the medieval notion that nobles had a feudal obligation
to fight for their ruler retained some vigour. Accordingly, rulers in the
sixteenth century still resorted to the customary way to raise troops by
calling upon their nobles to turn out accompanied by their retinues. Thus
the ban and arriere ban were deployed in France with a degree of success,
though some individuals chose to make a financial contribution rather
than serve in person. 12 Here, the great nobility retained an important role
in the provision of the cavalry. 13 In England, the great nobility were less
important than in previous decades, and the crown relied more upon the
lesser gentry, though members of the court nobility still had an important
if neglected role. 14 Nobles assembled their retinues in various ways: they
recruited volunteers; they established contracts with subordinate officers to
find men; and they called out their dependants, affinities, and tenants who
had little choice but to follow their lord. For instance, the Earl of Leicester,
who was authorized by Elizabeth I to raise 500 infantry in 1585, responded
by insisting that his tenants, whose leases obliged them to serve "in tyme
of warre", should follow him into the field. 15 Nobles continued to obey their
ruler's summons to arms in this way throughout the sixteenth century,
not least because they used their role as recruiting agents to strengthen
their position vis-a-vis the crown but also over their own dependants. 16 The
numbers that could be raised in this way were not insignificant. The Earl
of Pembroke reportedly brought 2,000 men from his Welsh estates during
the Western rebellion of 1549 though, as this example suggests, the use of
11 Quoted in Trim, "Fighting 'Jacob's Wars'", p. 232.
12 Lot, Recherches sur les ejfectifs des armeesfrancaises, pp. 258-261.
13 Potter, Renaissance France at War, pp. 177-179.
14 Goring, "The Military Obligations of the English People", pp. 112-137; Grummit, "The Court,
War and Noble Power in England".
15 Adams, "The Gentry of North Wales and the Earl of Leicester's Expedition to the Nether-
lands", pp. 133-134, "Military Obligations of Leasehold Tenants in Lancastrian Denbigh", p. 206.
16 Gunn, Grummit, and Cool, War, State and Society in England and the Netherlands, pp. 51-60,
138-142, 144-148; Boynton, The Elizabethan Militia, pp. 76-88.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
139
these semi-feudal retinues was generally restricted to local service within
the homeland. 17 But, as time went on, a declining proportion of the noble
class proved willing to honour their "feudal" obligations, and the system fell
into disuse. Nobles nevertheless continued to associate their social status,
and the privileges it brought, with martial virtues and military service. As
we shall see, in the eighteenth century rulers played upon this to make use
of them as recruiting agents.
It was generally agreed that volunteers made better soldiers than pressed
men. As one captain observed, "it is most sure [...] that persuading without
pressing will carry most and make the best soldiers". 18 This was one reason
why states preferred to use voluntary methods of recruitment. Three main
systems for voluntary recruiting can be identified, though they shared some
important characteristics. The first involved the use of commissioned offic-
ers. Typically a captain would be issued by a ruler with letters patent that
left him free to appoint his junior and non-commissioned officers (NCOs)
and that designated the area in which he could recruit. He, together with a
small party that included veterans whenever possible attracted volunteers by
broadcasting the need for men and by making soldiering appear as attractive
as possible through various means of public display - beating a drum, unfurl-
ing the colours, recounting tales of heroic military action - as well as through
the purchase of copious amounts of alcohol and the payment of a bounty.
Recruiting by commission was used both to raise new companies and to
maintain existing ones at something approaching full strength, and was
employed throughout western Europe. As one veteran commentator noted,
"The levying of souldiers [...] by the sound of the drumme [...] is generally
used over the most partes of Christendome." 19 It reached a peak of efficiency
in sixteenth-century Spain where the monarchy raised an average of 9,000
men annually with up to 20,000 being recruited in some years, though the
strains of war eventually took their toll and Philip II's successors reverted
to more traditional means, handing over responsibility for recruitment to
local towns and nobles as administration gave way to asiento. 20
The second method of voluntary recruitment involved negotiating an agree-
ment, the Bestallung, with a military contractor for the delivery of a specified
number of troops at an agreed time and place. The contract also set out the
17 Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols (London, 1885-1903), IX, pp. 671-672.
18 Quoted in Trim, "Fighting 'Jacob's Wars'", p. 229.
19 F. Markham, Five Decades of Epistles ofWarre (London, 1622), p. 30, quoted in Trim "Fighting
'Jacob's Wars'", p. 236.
20 Thompson, War and Government in Habsburg Spain, pp. 103-145.
140
FRANK TALLETT
terms of service, including levels of pay, duration, and the forms of warfare
in which the troops could be involved. Particularly in demand were German
Landsknechte, all-arms units noted for their reliability in battle, together with
specialist forces including Swiss pikemen, German Reiter or pistoleers, and
Albanian and Savoyard light cavalry. Contract troops developed a reputation
for being assertive in defence of their rights, refusing to fight if they were not
paid, for instance, and they were not cheap. However, they comprised a high
proportion of veterans, came ready trained and equipped, and acquitted
themselves so well on the battlefield that few states dared do without them.
One disadvantage of contract troops was that money not only had to be
found "up front" to employ them, but a continuing revenue stream was also
essential to retain their services. This was always going to be difficult for
cash-strapped governments. The situation was just about workable during
the sixteenth century when wars had lasted for no more than two or three
campaign seasons, but conflicts began to increase in duration, especially
after the temporary lull provided by the Peace of Cateau-Cambresis (1559),
putting increased strain on state finances. This opened up the potential for
a novel form of contracting which, following Fritz Redlich, I will designate
"general contracting". 21 The general contractor differed from the traditional
mercenary contractor of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in
that he did not merely raise a troop in return for initial costs. Instead, he
met these initial and some ongoing costs - recruitment, wages, equipment,
and supplies - well into the campaign, eventually recouping his outlay
and making a profit by the receipt of tax revenues, lump sum payments,
{Contributions levied on friendly and enemy territory, and booty. The unit
was "owned" by the contractor who had raised it and thus proprietorship
as well as entrepreneurship became significant features of warfare in the
late sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries. 22
The system of general contracting reached a peak during the Thirty Years
War (1618-1648). Fought largely within the German theatre, but involving
almost all the European states, the conflict demanded unprecedented
numbers of troops. Rulers lacked the necessary native manpower, the
administrative structures, and the liquid cash to recruit and supply the
soldiers themselves and turned to the services of general contractors, who
undertook the provision of whole regiments and even armies. The foremost
employer was the Holy Roman Emperor who had large potential assets in
the form of land and tax revenues, but lacked the administrative machinery
21 Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Workforce, remains the classic study.
22 Parrott, "From Military Enterprise to Standing Armies", esp. pp. 79-83.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
141
in his Austrian lands to mobilize these. 23 France stood out against the trend,
but even it was obliged to make limited use of general contractors. 24 The
leading enterpriser was Albrecht von Wallenstein. His army lists recorded
total paper strengths in 1625 of 61,900, rising to 150,900 five years later. 25
To recruit and supply forces on such a huge scale perforce involved the
contractor in establishing networks with subcontracting colonels and cap-
tains who "beat the drum" and produced the volunteers. Not only that, but
the contractor made agreements with financiers and bankers, merchants,
munitionnaires, arms manufacturers, and others to supply the army with
food, munitions, equipment, and pay. Accordingly, regiments or armies such
as those raised by Ernst von Mansfeld, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, Albrecht
von Wallenstein, Johan Baner, or Lennart Torstensson represented the ac-
cumulation of venture capital on a huge scale, and the commander presided
over a group of stakeholders who all expected a return on their investment,
whether that investment be financial or purely military, with implications
for the relationship between soldier and employer, as we shall see.
Methods of recruitment, c. 1650-1790
From the second half of the seventeenth century, methods of recruitment
changed in a number of significant ways. In the first major development,
states made greater use of involuntary recruitment. They continued to draft
criminals and ne'er-do-wells, but in larger numbers than before. The war
minister of France, the Comte de St Germain, noted in 1775 that, "As things
are, the army must inevitably consist of the scum of the people, and of all
those for whom society has no use." 26 More importantly, states developed the
obligation to perform military service to draft men into militias. These could
be used for special purposes, such as policing Huguenot areas, serving as a
reserve in time of war, or providing a mechanism for drafting men directly
into the regular forces. Of the great powers, it was France under Louis XIV
that led the way. Every parish was obliged to provide a recruit who could
be taken into the regular army. In this way more than 250,000 men were
23 He employed twice as many contractors as Sweden: Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser
andHis Workforce, I, p. 206.
24 Parrott, "French Military Organization in the 1630s", pp. 160-163, Richelieu's Army.
25 Kollmann, DocumentaBohemicaBellum Tricennale Illustrantia, IV, pp. 414-446. There were
around 210,000 soldiers employed in Germany in 1648: Parker, The Thirty Years War, p. 191.
26 Quoted in Ducros, French Society in the Eighteenth Century, p. 294. On Prussia, see Wilson,
"Social Militarization in Eighteenth-Century Germany", pp. 16-18.
142
FRANK TALLETT
raised between 1701 and 1713, representing 46 per cent of the native recruits
who fought during the War of the Spanish Succession, while some 120,000
militia were drafted to replace garrisoned veterans in the 1740s. 27 Although
heartily detested, militia service was supportable because the wealthy and
well-connected were able to buy themselves out. Many German states made
even greater use of the militia. In Bavaria, Mecklenburg, and Wiirttemberg
under the regency of Friedrich Karl (1677-1693), militia formations were
raised and then drafted into the regular army as the need arose. Elsewhere,
as in Saxony, Mainz, and Wiirzburg, the intermediate militia stage was
omitted and men on the militia lists were taken straight into the army. In
Prussia in 1733, Hesse-Cassel in 1762, and Austria between 1771 and 1780, a
canton system of recruitment was adopted (Kantonverfassung), with each
regiment being allocated a district from which it drew regular annual levies,
the compulsory element of service being supplied by the obligation that had
existed to enrol in the militia. 28
The second major development concerned the system of military con-
tracting. This did not end altogether after 1650, but it changed markedly. The
general contractors who had figured so prominently in the Thirty Years War
disappeared from the scene, and military contracting in its classical sense
was substantially modified. Military contracting had always represented a
standing affront to princes' sovereignty. This was what Stephen Gardiner had
been getting at in 1545 when he wrote of the need "to eskape the thrawldom
to such noughty mennes service". 29 Moreover, some contractors in the Thirty
Years War had displayed signs of a dangerous autonomy. Cardinal Richelieu
commented about Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, "An excellent commander
but so much for himself that no-one could be sure of him". 30 Accordingly,
the use of general contractors was phased out and the role of the private
entrepreneur was diminished. For a while, the market for contract troops
was left to the younger sons of German princes who had no personal
patrimony or hope of royal succession. 31 But from the late seventeenth
27 Corvisier, L'armeefrancaise de lafm duXVIIe siecle au ministere de Choiseul, I, tables pp. 157,
248; Lynn, Giant of the Grand Steele, pp. 369-393. See also Girard, Le service mititaire en France
a lafm du regne de Louis XIV.
28 Summarized in Wilson, War, State and Society in Wiirttemberg, pp. 79-81. See also Ingrao,
The Hessian Mercenary State; and Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great, pp. 54-57.
29 Muller, The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, p. 180.
30 Quoted in Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War, p. 366. But see the revisionary comments of
Parrott on Wallenstein: "From Military Enterprise to Standing Armies", p. 85. The traditional
view of his treachery is given in "Wallenstein", in G. Martel (ed.), Encyclopedia of War, 5 vols
(Chichester, 2012), V, pp. 2350-2352.
31 Barker, "Military Entrepreneurship and Absolutism".
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
143
century and throughout the eighteenth, a substantial number of rulers
began to rent out their armies to foreign employers. The states concerned
in this "soldier-trade" were principally German but included others such as
Savoy-Piedmont and Sweden under the regency of Karl XI. In return for the
hire of its forces, Sweden took "subsidies" from France using the money to
retain a credible army in Pomerania. 32 The eighteenth-century market for
the hire of soldiers was dominated by states from within the Holy Roman
Empire, including Hesse-Cassel, Hanover, Wiirttemberg, Bavaria, Saxony,
the Palatinate, and Wiirzburg. 33 Significantly, many of the troops who were
hired out had been forcibly drafted into the army with implications for
scholars seeking to construct a taxonomy of army types, as we shall see.
As well as relying on impressed men, militias, and hired forces, states
also developed their systems for finding volunteers. Even in Prussia, which
relied heavily upon impressment, more than half the army continued to
be volunteers. 34 How were these found? As noted above, the quasi-feudal
system of recruitment was already in terminal decline in the sixteenth
century. Nobles nevertheless continued to associate their social status with
martial virtues and military service, and rulers made use of this to engage
their social and political elites in the recruitment and maintenance of their
forces. 35 Many nobles were prepared to put themselves and their private
fortunes at the disposal of monarchs in the expectation of gaining prestige
and because, quite simply, this was what was expected of them. One way
of encouraging nobles to do so was by formally implementing a system of
venality under which officers purchased their commissions, as happened
most notably in France. 36 Although venality theoretically gave officers
ownership of their office and not of their men, in practice they were still
expected to recruit their unit. They did so by public appeal to volunteers,
by using their influence over dependants, and by deploying their private
retinues in those instances where they still maintained them. Equally,
32 Storrs, War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy, ch. 2; Upton, Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism,
pp. 14-15, 94-97-
33 On the soldier-trade, see Hartmann, Geld als Instrument Europaischer Machtpolitik, Karl
Albrecht-Karl VII, pp. 150-160; Wilson, War, State and Society in Wiirttemberg, ch. 3; Ingrao, The
Hessian Mercenary State; Atwood, The Hessians; Brauer, Die Hannoversch-Englischen Subsidi-
envertrage,
34 Wilson, "Social Militarization in Eighteenth-Century Germany", p. 5.
35 Parrott, "From Military Enterprise to Standing Armies"; Glete, War and the State in Early
Modern Europe, pp. 52-66.
36 Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army under louis XIV, "Louis XIV, Aristocratic Power
and the Elite Units of the French Army". On problems with venality in the later eighteenth
century, see Felix and Tallett, "The French Experience, 1661-1815", pp. 158-159.
144
FRANK TALLETT
nobles were expected to use their own resources to equip, pay, and feed
their men when state funding ran out, as it invariably did. Venality gave
officers an incentive to invest their personal resources in the recruitment
and maintenance of their units, since they would be more likely to get a
return on their investment over the longer term. Profits could be made, for
example, by selling rights of leave, from the supply of food and equipment to
the men, and from the sale of subordinate officerships and NCO positions.
Even where venality was not introduced, nobles could still be lured into
accepting a commission and acting as a recruiting agent by the expectation
of making a profit through the Kompaniewirtschaft, the system whereby
captains made money from administering the finances of a company of
soldiers. Austrian colonels expected to earn 10,000 gulden annually. 37 Prus-
sia resisted the trend, though here the lack of alternative employment forced
nobles into the army. Proprietorship and entrepreneurship thus continued
to be important within armies throughout the early modern period, and
integral to the process of raising and maintaining forces.
Looking at the period 1500-1790 overall, three points stand out. First,
governments used a variety of systems to recruit their forces. These systems
reflected the nature of the early modern state, and in particular the relative
fiscal and administrative weakness of central authority. This obliged gov-
ernments to rely upon the use of contractors, including general contractors
for a time, as well as upon their social and political elites to recruit and
maintain armies. Even when the use of general contractors was phased
out after c. 1650, states still found it easier to hire troops rather than raise
them ab initio, and the dependence of rulers upon the co-operation of their
nobilities, who served as intermediate agents of government, remained
very considerable.
Secondly, despite the increased use of impressment, volunteers consti-
tuted the majority of recruits before the French revolutionary wars when,
confronted with an apparently overwhelming coalition of European states,
the nascent republic introduced the levee en masse in 1793 and further
refined its procedures for conscription through the Jourdan-Delbrel law
of 1799. The readiness of men to volunteer for military service can be
chiefly explained by the overcrowded state of the labour market. For most
volunteers, the army was an employer of last resort, and they signed on
only because there was nothing better to be had. To be sure, a few may have
joined to throw off the humdrum workaday world of civilian employment.
"To bee bound an apprentice, that life I deemed little better than a dog's
37 Asch, "War and State-Building", p. 326; McKay, Prince Eugene of Savoy, p. 11.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
145
life and base", wrote Sydnam Poyntz in explanation of his decision to join
up. 38 Others welcomed the chance to see the world, or the opportunity
to enjoy the unrestrained licentious behaviour that characterized what
Erasmus termed "the wicked life of the soldier", 39 while for yet others the
army offered the chance of glory. Francis I, the Holy Roman Emperor (1745-
1765), noted that "what the natives of Ireland even dislike for principle, they
generally will perform through a desire for glory". 40 Yet most recruits agreed
to serve for the prosaic reason that they simply had no other way to make
a living. Hardship and need were the best recruiting sergeants and drove
men into armies. Even Poyntz confessed his true reason for enlisting: "My
necessitie forced mee, my Money being growne short, to take the manes
of a private soldier." 41 The impoverished recruit created by the playwright
Calderon de la Barca summed up the situation for the overwhelming major-
ity of volunteers: "Only great need drives me to the war, I'd never go had
I money in store." 42 Recruitment patterns were accordingly closely linked
to economic cycles. Volunteers were easiest to find in the autumn months
as agricultural labourers were laid off, or in the wake of a slump. Edward
Coss has demonstrated that enlistment in the British army soared at times
of economic downturn. 43 Of course, one might question whether potential
recruits faced with a choice between starvation and signing-on were in any
meaningful sense "volunteers". But the fact that they were theoretically free
agents, and there was no legal compulsion on them to join, means that we
should locate them on the "free" end of the axis of our graph.
Thirdly, the ready supply of volunteers meant that governments through-
out our period could use impressment and militia service as a last resort
to top up their forces, drawing upon those elements judged to be of little
use to society and who had no political clout. There was greater resort to
involuntary recruitment in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
This was brought about by an expansion in the number of men under arms.
Historically, around 1 per cent of the population has represented the ceiling
for sustainable recruitment, but this figure began to be routinely exceeded
with Louis XIV's France leading the way. Peacetime levels of about 10,000
and 60,000-80,000 for major wars before 1650 soared to totals of 130,000
38 Goodrick, The Relation of Sydnam Poyntz, p. 45.
39 Quoted in Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, p. 127.
40 Quoted in McGinn, "St Patrick's Day in Vienna, 1766", Irish Roots Magazine, 1 (1996), pp. 10-11,
cited in O'Reilly, "The Irish Mercenary Tradition in the 1600s", p. 384.
41 Goodrick, The Relation of Sydnam Poyntz, p. 45.
42 Quoted in Stradling, Europe and the Decline of Spain, p. 124.
43 Coss, All for the King 's Shilling.
146
FRANK TALLETT
and 360,000 respectively by the 1690s, representing over 2 per cent of the
French population. Prussia during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) had
250,000 men under arms, around 5 per cent of the population of 5 million,
and kept an army of 150,000 in peacetime. Britain similarly came close to
the 2 per cent mark during the Seven Years War and War of American In-
dependence. 44 These wartime highs proved unsustainable in the long term,
but they nonetheless represented an increase on earlier decades, and by the
eighteenth century most European states had wartime military establish-
ments that were four or five times bigger than those of their predecessors
200 years previously. 45 One consequence of the increased number of men
under arms was the need to make greater use of involuntary methods of
recruitment. These methods were deployed especially by those states, such
as Prussia, that maintained disproportionately large armies in relation to
their population, and whose limited tax base and under-commercialized
economies made it difficult to mobilize liquid resources. 46
The rewards of soldiering
Whatever the process that led to their recruitment, all soldiers expected
to be compensated for what they did. This included receipt of pay, and in
certain respects being paid made them similar to civilian wage-labourers.
Pay rates for the "average" soldier - if such a thing existed - were on the low
side but broadly consistent with those in the civilian labour market. The 1514
Statute of Artificers in England set the wages of skilled craftsmen at 6d per
day, with other labourers at 4d. By comparison an ordinary infantryman
received some 6d in mid-century. When inflation is taken into account
this was hardly generous but not out of line with what one might expect. 47
Moreover, soldiers with specialist skills who were in short supply received
additional rewards, so that manifold gradations of pay existed in early
modern armies. Thus the company assembled by Count Brissac for royal
service in 1567 included three commissioned officers, two NCOs, a quar-
44 Gat, "What Constituted the Military Revolution of the Early Modern Period?", pp. 36-38;
Lynn, "Revisiting the Great Fact of War and Bourbon Absolutism"; Frost, The Northern Wars,
p. 115.
45 Wilson, "Warfare in the Old Regime", table 3:1, p. 80.
46 Wilson, "Social Militarization in Eighteenth Century Germany", pp. 38-39; Scott, "The
Fiscal-Military State and International Rivalry during the Long Eighteenth Century", pp. 47-48.
47 Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols (London, 1810-1828), III, pp. 124-126; Tallett, War and Society in
Early-Modern Europe, pp. 94-95.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
147
termaster, musicians, three kinds of pikemen, halberdiers, and three sorts
of arquebusiers, all of whom received different levels of pay with the result
that in this small unit there were fourteen distinct pay grades. 48 Specialist
troops received higher rewards than their locally recruited counterparts,
partly in recognition of their superior fighting skills. Landsknecht pay in
sixteenth-century French royal armies was about 20 per cent higher than
that of the native infantry, and the German units also received additional
bonus payments. Swiss pikemen in French employ received an extra month's
wages in the event of battle, and survivors insisted upon receiving the pay
of casualties. 49
To be sure, higher pay rates did not simply reflect the state of the labour
market and the specialist skills on offer. Thus, the heavy cavalry through-
out our period tended to be especially well rewarded. During the Wars
of Religion, their officers were paid twice as much as analogous ranks
in the infantry; and even the lowest-paid mounted archer, at 17 Livres per
month, had a salary higher than most rank-and-file infantry. This certainly
reflected their perceived usefulness on the battlefield, but higher wages
were also meant to cover the initial investment in horses and equipment
that was required of the mounted soldier. The cost of outfitting a mounted
archer was in the region of 400 Livres; and a minimum of 600-700 Livres was
required for an homme d'armes who needed three horses and a significantly
greater amount of armour. This was ten or fifteen times the cost of equip-
ping a heavily armoured pikeman. Higher wages were also paid to cover the
cost of feeding and replacing the horses while on campaign (given their high
mortality levels, the latter represented a significant expense). 50 Finally, and
most importantly, higher pay rates in the cavalry were due in large measure
to the superior social status of the members of this branch of the army.
It was probably in the artillery regiments - units that proved least
attractive to the nobility and where there were the clearest functional
divisions - that the laws of the labour market can be seen to have operated
48 Wood, The King's Army, pp. 88-89.
49 Potter, Renaissance France at War, pp. 129-130, 137. Being hired by the regiment made contract
troops more expensive, since the employer had to fund an extra layer of regimental officers:
Wood, The King's Army, p. 137.
50 Wood, The King's Army, pp. 135-136; Robinson, "Horse Supply and the Development of the
New Model Army", p. 122 and passim. It cost around £12 to mount and equip a cavalryman
in England in the 1640s, compared to an infantryman's pay of 8d per day. See British Library,
Thomason Tracts, £300(5) Ordinance...for the Raising of Five Hundred Horse; Asquith, The New
Model Army, p. 19. Note the comments of Maurice de Saxe, Mes reveries (1732), in Phillips, Roots
of Strategy, pp. 119-120, 137.
148
FRANK TALLETT
in their purest form. A French memoir from 1568 estimated that 2,620 people
would be needed to service the artillery train of the royal army, including
clerks, gunners, pioneers, pontoon specialists, tenters, drivers, and others.
The highest paid was the grand master, at 500 Livres per month; the lowest
were the humble labourers or pioneers. As James Wood has indicated, the
wages paid to the personnel of the artillery train, and the functions they
performed, correlated very closely to an industrial enterprise. Thus there
was a clear labour hierarchy, with those exercising managerial/supervisory
roles receiving the most pay, followed by the skilled elements (roughly 22
per cent of the total force), then the unskilled workers who comprised some
75 per cent of the workforce. All the skilled workers, beginning with the
gunners at 10 Livres per month, received higher wage rates than the average
pikeman or arquebusiers at 8-9 Livres per month, and their pay compared
favourably with that of the mounted archers who, when expenses were
taken into account, may have cleared only 8.7 Livres in monthly salary. 51
Like their counterparts in civilian society, soldiers were not averse to us-
ing their "industrial muscle" to wring higher rewards out of their employers.
This was especially the case with groups such as the Swiss pikemen and
the Landsknechte, both of whom had a strong sense of communal solidarity
reinforced by well-developed, autonomous internal structures that made
them, in some respects, akin to guilds or trade unions. The Landsknechte,
for instance, formed self-governing units in which the common soldiers,
comprising the gemeente or community, elected their own officers (the
voerder, gemeene weyfel, and fourier), administered justice, and agreed their
terms and conditions of employment. 52 They used their corporate solidarity
to drive up pay rates and to impose what now might be termed restrictive
practices. Thus the Swiss in 1522 informed their immediate employer, the
due de Montmorency, that they would not assault fortified towns because
this was simply "not their trade". 53 Just as the autonomy and restrictive
practices of the guilds offended the Lumieres of later Enlightenment dec-
ades, so these same characteristics of the Landsknechte offended their
employers even though their military skills made them indispensable. In
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the remedy in both instances
appeared similar: to reduce the autonomy and self-governance of guilds and
Landsknechte. In the case of the former this meant exposing them to the
51 Wood, The King's Army, pp. 161-168.
52 Baumann, Landsknechte; Burschel, Soldner in Nordwestdeutschland des 76. undij.Jahrhun-
derts.
53 Du Bellay and du Bellay, Memoires, IV, p. 189.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
149
rigour of the free market, and in the case of the latter it involved an attack
on their internal structures of governance.
There are undoubtedly parallels to be drawn between soldiers and wage-
labourers in civilian society. Yet we should not take these too far. One
difference was the irregularity of soldiers' pay. To be sure, wage-labourers
in civilian society were commonly laid off: as the need for farm labour was
reduced in the winter months or as cyclical slumps hit manufacturing in-
dustries. Soldiers too were frequently dismissed at the end of the campaign
season as the winter months approached. What was distinctive about the
soldier's situation was the extent to which he frequently received little or
no pay even while he was employed. This resulted in the accumulation of
arrears which could be substantial. By February 1568 a third of the heavy
cavalry companies in the French royal army had received no pay since the
first quarter of the previous year; and the wages of the rest of the army were
more than six months in arrears. During the campaign around Landrecies
in 1542, the English commander Wallop, then in imperial service, reported
of his men that they were "veray poore and few or none of theym have
any greate store of money, victualz be dere, clothes wax thyn, and cold
weather encreseath". Similarly, the veteran Sir James Turner, who fought
in Ireland for a Scots contingent during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms
(as the English Civil Wars are now more adequately referred to) recorded
that the army "fingered no pay the whole time I stayd in Ireland, except
for three months". 54
One response of soldiers to low or no pay was to mutiny, and in some
respects this withdrawal of labour may be regarded as the equivalent of
the strike in the civilian labour market. Mutinies were most common and
sophisticated in the Spanish Army of Flanders, though they were by no
means restricted to these forces. Forty-five major munities were staged (and
there was a good deal of ritualized drama in their conduct) between 1572
and 1607, with some lasting more than a year. Mutineers elected leaders or
"management committees", negotiated with the government, and sustained
themselves by levying local taxes. 55 However, a second response of soldiers
to low or no pay was unique and simply not available to civilian workers.
Without the wages that were supposed to buy essential supplies, the soldiers
54 Wood, The King's Army, p. 275; Brewer, Gairdner, and Brodie, Letters and Papers, Foreign
and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, XVIII, ii, p. 267; Turner, Memoirs of His Own Life and
Times, p. 24.
55 Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, pp. 185-206, "Mutiny and Discontent in
the Spanish Army of Flanders"; Wymans, "Les mutineries militaires de 1596 a 1606".
150
FRANK TALLETT
resorted to pillaging the local population, taking whatever they needed
by force. Thus, Thomas Stockdale complained of the atrocities commit-
ted by soldiers based in Yorkshire during the 1640s, admitting that if only
the troops had been paid "the sufferance and wrong would be unto many
less sensible". 56 This easy, almost casual resort to violence, often involving
extreme levels of brutality, can be explained in a number of ways. Robert
Muchembled notes the constant and systematic pattern of conflict between
troops and members of the rural community. 57 Such poor relations in part
reflected the long-standing urban/rural hostility that was a pronounced
feature of early modern society; and troops recruited largely from the towns
had little regard for inhabitants of the countryside whom they regarded as
backward, stupid, and easy prey. 58
However, we should probably look beyond town/country relations to
the huge cultural gulf that separated soldiers from all civilians. As Wood
notes, "The soldiery were an instrument of barely controlled violence and
destructiveness and their vocation and values were based upon completely
different assumptions about rules of law, property rights, and the appli-
cation of force and coercion that in any other context would be clearly
criminal behaviour." 59 Levels of violence were especially high whenever
there was a heightened sense of the "Other" between soldiers and civilians
brought about, for example, by pronounced ethnic, religious, or cultural
differences. 60 Foreign troops in particular saw themselves as set apart from
the native civilian population. The notorious "Day of the Landsknechte" at
Caen in 1513 when soldiers ransacked the town after having not been paid
for months, the sack of Rome by Charles V's unpaid German troops in 1527,
and the "Spanish Fury" at Antwerp in 1576 were merely the best known of
a long catalogue of outrages by non-native troops. 61 Similarly, the appalling
treatment of Irish civilians in the 1640s by English soldiers was grounded
in the widely held belief that Irish Catholics were "backward" with respect
to religion and culture. Barnaby Rich described them as "more uncivil,
more uncleanly, more barbarous and more brutish in their customs and
demeanours than any other people in the known world". 62 Moreover, it
56 Johnson, The Fairfax Correspondence, I, p. 203.
57 Muchembled, La violence au village, esp. pp. 107-118.
58 Hale, War and Society in Renaissance Europe, pp. 190-191.
59 Wood, The King's Army, p. 236.
60 Hale, "On the Concept of the 'Other' and the 'Enemy'".
61 De Bourdeille de Brantome, Oeuvres completes, VI, pp. 220-227; Tracy, Emperor Charles V,
Impresario of War, pp. 32-36; Parker, The Dutch Revolt, p. 178.
62 Rich, A Short Survey of Ireland, p. 2.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
151
made little difference when soldiers were meant to be allies of the civilian
population. This can be exemplified by the behaviour of poorly paid Scots
forces in England during the first Civil War, who committed numerous
atrocities in their search for supplies, even though they were meant to be
billeted upon a friendly population. 63
The irregularity of their pay and their ready resort to violence when
unpaid were not the only things that distinguished soldiers from civilian
wage-labourers. Being paid a wage was not necessarily the main or even sole
reason for fighting. All soldiers anticipated an economic reward, but this
might equally come from ransom or from booty as from pay, certainly before
c. 1650. "Do you think we are in the King's service for the four ducats a month
we earn?", Henry VIII's Spanish captains serving at Boulogne rhetorically
asked their general. "Not so my lord: on the contrary, we serve with the
hope of taking prisoners and getting their ransom." 64 Others expected to
make a profit by picking over the dead and wounded on the battlefield
and from the sack of a town after it had been taken by assault. The laws
of war permitted the soldiers three days of unrestricted plunder of a town
that had been stormed after it had unreasonably refused to surrender.
This was justified partly on the grounds that it would otherwise have been
impossible to bring the soldiers to the point where they were prepared to
undertake the hazardous operation of storming a breach. Outside these
instances, monetary reward might come through routine pillaging of
peasants and others. Thus a sixteenth-century woodcut by Erhard Schon
shows a Landsknecht and his female companion with poems accompanying
the two characters. The Landsknecht, a former cobbler, explains that he
will abandon shoemaking for soldiering to gain what he can, since being a
cobbler rewards him little, though "in many wars I have won/Great wealth
and manifold honors/Who then knows whom fortune favors?" She replies
that, "Perhaps so much maybe my winning [from pillage] /Much more than
ever I could whilst spinning." 65 We should not be surprised by soldiers'
expectation of reward by means of ransom and pillage, for the spoils of
war figured prominently as a form of legitimate compensation in the late
Middle Ages, and a long tradition of legal plunder preceded early modern
63 British Library, Thomason Tracts, £365(9), A Remonstrance Concerning the Misdemeanours
of some of the Scots Souldiers in the County ofYorke, 1646. On patterns of soldier/civilian violence,
see Tallett, "Soldats et actes de violence a l'encontre des civils dans les lies britanniques".
64 Hume, Chronicle of King Henry VIII...Written in Spanish by an unknown hand.
65 Lynn, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe, pp. 16-17.
152
FRANK TALLETT
military practice. The taking of spoils was a defining characteristic of just,
or public, war. 66
Cash-strapped governments, unable to pay the soldiers in full or some-
times at all, had little choice but to accept the routine nature of pillage. The
Mercure frangois put it bluntly: "One finds enough soldiers when one gives
them the freedom to live off the land, and allowing them to pillage supports
them without pay." 67 Indeed, sometimes the situation could be turned to
one's advantage. The system of regulated plunder that came to a peak in
the Thirty Years War sought, not altogether successfully, to allow armies
to live off the population by taking regular Kontributions. Although heavy,
Kontributions were meant to preserve the productive capacity of the terri-
tory while tapping it for the army's benefit. 68 At other times, giving soldiers
free rein to pillage was a deliberate act of strategy, designed to hamper
the movements of the enemy forces and bring about their disintegration.
Integral to pillaging before c. 1650 was the presence with the army of non-
combatants, including women, who foraged, plundered, managed the "take",
and exchanged goods for money or food with the sutlers and "fences". The
significance of all this from our point of view is that soldiers were not so
much being paid to fight but rather being given "a de facto licence to pillage
in order to support themselves, often with the aid of their comrades and
female partners", and in these circumstances the soldier should be regarded
less as a wage-earner and more as "a kind of sub-contractor, empowered to
support himself by a form of petty entrepreneurship in a family economy
based upon pillage". 69
The relationship of general contractors and noble officers to their "em-
ployers" was equally ambiguous. As I have already noted, for the employer
the attraction of using a general contractor was that in return for only a
modest "up-front" payment, the contractor and his network of subcontract-
ing colonels and captains, financiers, and munitionnaires, were prepared to
subsidize initial recruitment costs, and then cover the expense of paying,
equipping, and supplying the troops until well into the campaign. The
contractor and his network of associates were thus not so much employees
of the state as its creditors. True, the use of general contractors was phased
out after the end of the Thirty Years War. But, as we have seen, govern-
ments turned increasingly to their nobilities, who were expected to use
66 Keen, The Laws ofWar in the Late Middle Ages.
67 Quoted in Tilly, The Contentious French, p. 123.
68 See Tallett, War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, pp. 55-56, for a summary.
69 Lynn, "Comments on Mercenary Military Service in Early Modern Europe", p. 7.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
153
their personal resources to help with the recruitment, pay, and supply of
their unit. As Redlich has observed, regiments ceased to be the large-scale
business enterprises of Wallenstein's day, but they nevertheless represented
an investment from which the colonel/captain might hope to recover his
capital and, with any luck, generate a profit. 70 Whether nobles did always
make a profit is open to doubt: as Herve Drevillon has shown in the case
of France, they acquired honour as a result of military service, but little
monetary gain. 71 Nevertheless, the fact remains that they were prepared
to subsidize the crown, and in this respect they too were as much creditors
as employees of the state.
There are, then, real difficulties in seeing the soldier, certainly in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a wage-labourer who fought merely
for pay. However, the situation did become clearer by the eighteenth century.
As any number of examples testify, the failure to pay and supply troops and
the tacit approval of ransom and pillage as substitutes for regular wages
resulted in mutiny, indiscipline, disorder, or desertion. Any one of these
could cause the collapse of the army as a fighting force and bring a campaign
to a juddering halt. As the experienced contractor Count Rhingrave, presci-
ently warned, "The soldier cannot live on air [...] where there is hunger
and necessity, there will arise disorder." 72 A seventeenth-century observer
similarly noted that "The greatest weakening of an army is disorder. The
greatest cause of disorder is want of pay." 73 The due d'Estampes warned
that if he could not provide for his men they would either desert or join the
enemy "because such men follow the escu". 74 Accordingly, from the mid-
seventeenth century, governments began, albeit falteringly, to put in place
a series of linked initiatives aimed at producing military forces that were
more tightly controlled by the prince and better supported by the state. The
objective behind these initiatives was to improve military efficiency and
to turn armies into more effective instruments of state power. As Michel le
Tellier succinctly noted, "To secure the livelihood of the soldier is to secure
victory for the king." 75
70 Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Workforce, II, pp. 55-62.
71 Drevillon, L'impdtdu sang. His archival sources probably lead him to understate the costs
incurred.
72 Lublinskaya, Documents pour server a Thistoire des guerres civiles en France, p. 246.
73 British Library, Thomason Tracts, En6(36) Observations Concerning Princes and States upon
Peace and Warre, 1642.
74 Lublinskaya, Documents pour server a I'histoire des guerres civiles en France, p. 97. See also
Donagan, War in England, 7643-49, pp. 264-267.
75 Quoted in Andre, Michel le Tellier et Torganisation de I'armee monarchique, p. 64.
154
FRANK TALLETT
First, governments sought to pay their soldiers regularly even if not
always in full. The Dutch in many respects led the way, and were generally
regarded as the best - in the sense of most reliable - payers in the late
seventeenth century. Not only did the States have access to liquid funds,
drawn from taxes levied upon the Republic's thriving commercial trade,
but they made use of the innovation of solliciteurs-militair, businessmen
who, in return for an agreed monthly sum, were prepared to advance
money to a captain and his company, thus ensuring the men their pay. A
formalization of the system gave the solliciteurs-militair a monopoly on
paying the troops in return for an agreed interest rate of 6.95 per cent on
all the funds they advanced. 76 The Dutch system of payment to some extent
prefigured what would happen elsewhere. During the War of the Austrian
Succession (1741-1749), for example, pay advances to the troops in the two
French armies operating in Germany, the armee de Baviere and the armee
de Westphalie, were handled increasingly by a body of specialist financiers
such as Mauvillain. 77 If soldiers were paid more routinely, governments
nonetheless took action to ensure that there was no scope for bargaining
over levels of pay and conditions of service. Thus the Landsknecht regiments
were reorganized into companies; their elected officers were abolished;
pay was tied to musters; and troops lost the right to represent themselves.
In a similar way, employers sought means to restrict the autonomy of the
Swiss pikemen. 78
Secondly, paying the soldiers allowed the enforcement of harsher dis-
cipline. As Everhard van Reyd stated bluntly, "One could not hang those
[soldiers] one did not pay", a judgement confirmed by General George
Monck who concluded that "if [the men] are punctually paid [...] then your
general can with justice punish them severely". 79 By the mid-seventeenth
century, most of the rules and conventions governing the conduct of war-
fare were already in place. 80 As far as the ordinary soldier was concerned,
these were embodied in the articles of war issued by commanders at the
76 Van Nimwegen, "The Transformation of Army Organisation", pp. 170-171, 174-175. On the
collapse of Dutch finances after 1715, see Scott, "The Fiscal-Military State and International
Rivalry during the Long Eighteenth Century", pp. 34-36.
77 Felix, "Victualling Louis XV's Armies", p. 10.
78 Van Nimwegen, "The Transformation of Army Organisation", p. 168.
79 E. Van Reyd, Histoire der Nederlantscher Oorlogen (Leuwarden, 1650), p. 324, quoted in
Nickle, The Military Reforms of Prince Maurice of Orange, pp. 90-91; Monck quoted in Lloyd, A
Review of the History of Infantry, p. 182. See also the comments of Maurice de Saxe, Mes reveries,
in Phillips, Roots of Strategy, p. 106.
80 Parker, "Early Modern Europe", p. 41.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
155
start of each campaign. The articles would not be altered in substance,
though they were greatly expanded in detail, but from the second half of
the seventeenth century they began to be enforced with a new rigour. 81 In
particular, those sections that forbade looting, theft, and mistreatment of
civilians were implemented in an attempt to cut out or at least restrain
unlicensed pillaging. Marshal Claude Villars's use of "the very greatest sever-
ity" against breaches of discipline with respect to pillaging was typical. 82
All eighteenth-century armies thus had their equivalent of the French
prevots de marechaux charged with keeping order in the camp and on the
march, and military courts were held on a more routine basis than they
had been earlier.
Apart from restricting pillage, the enforcement of more rigorous disci-
pline had the extra benefit from the commander's point of view that raw
recruits could be made to march, drill, and practise battlefield manoeuvres.
Additionally, troops could now be obliged to perform duties such as digging
trenches and latrines, carrying their own baggage, and preparing earthwork
fortifications. These were duties that their predecessors had frequently
jibbed at and devolved onto the numerous women and other camp followers,
or onto civilians haplessly pressed into service. 83 As Wood has noted, these
privileges were analogous to those of master-craftsmen, and their existence
had meant that troops in the first half of our period had "operated more like
skilled and somewhat independent contract workers, and the whole army as
a cross between a warrior society and a specialized labor force". 84 Although
it is important not to exaggerate the contrasts with an earlier epoch and
to acknowledge national differences of practice, by the eighteenth century
soldiers were increasingly cowed and obedient products of harsh discipline,
epitomized at the extreme by the robotic Prussian forces, very different
from the swaggering freebooters of two centuries earlier. 85
As well as restricting opportunities for pillage, governments also denied
soldiers the possibility of profit by taking over responsibility for ransom-
ing prisoners. Henry VIII's Spanish captains had no counterpart in the
81 Navereau, Le logement et tes ustensiles des gens de guerres ; Tallett, War and Society in Early-
Modern Europe, pp. 123-126.
82 Villars, Memoires du Marechal de Villars, II, p. 230.
83 McNeill, The Pursuit of Power, pp. 117-143. See plate 6 and accompanying inscription of
Callot's "Les Miseres...de la Guerre" (1633), depicting villagers being led away probably to act as
labourers: Daniel, Callot's Etchings, item 271.
84 Wood, The King's Army, p. 304.
85 Kunisch, Furst-Gesellschaft-Krieg, pp. 178-182; and the comments of Frederick the Great on
"Prussian Troops" in Military Instructions.
156
FRANK TALLETT
eighteenth century as governments asserted that prisoners became the
property of the state which would handle negotiations for their release and
take the proceeds of any ransom. Soldiers thus lost out financially on two
fronts. More positively, however, governments did begin to take greater care
of the welfare of their soldiers, arranging to supply them directly with food,
equipment, tobacco, clothing, and housing, things that the soldier had previ-
ously been expected to purchase out of his pay. Again, the motivation was
not altruistic but pragmatic: governments recognized that poorly supplied
troops did not win wars. The Spanish Army of Flanders had led the way in
this regard in the sixteenth century, but by the 1700s it was becoming com-
monplace for governments to put in place arrangements with large-scale
civilian contractors for the supply of goods to the army. 86 One unlooked-for
consequence of the direct supply of clothing to the troops was that there was
greater standardization of dress, leading to the development of uniforms
with all that this implied in terms of making men more amenable to drill
and discipline. 87
To be sure, we should not exaggerate either the extent of these changes or
the abruptness of the breach with the past. Change was gradual rather than
revolutionary. The mechanisms of state administration were creaky and
frequently broke down, leaving the soldier unpaid, unfed, and poorly clothed.
Despite the harsh enforcement of discipline, desertion and disorder remained
common features of armies, and civilians still suffered at their hands. The
number of mutinies certainly diminished after c. 1650, but they still continued
to take place and might have serious repercussions, as John Prebble's study of
Highland troops in British service demonstrates. 88 Nonetheless, there were
significant developments taking place, and the eighteenth-century soldier
may be seen as more dependent than his sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
predecessors on his wage and goods-in-kind provided by his employer, unable
to bargain about pay and terms of employment, increasingly hemmed about
by regulation, and part of a military machine in which standardization and
uniformity was becoming the norm.
86 Felix, "Victualling Louis XV's Armies". See also Cote, Joseph-Michel Cadet, for the supply of
troops overseas.
87 Labourers in the sixteenth-century French royal army had been given uniforms to make
desertion harder: Wood, The King's Army, p. 166.
88 Prebble, Mutiny.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
157
Social and cultural restraints on soldiering; duration of service
Some of the social and cultural factors that influenced recruitment - the
identification of the nobility with military service and the ability of the
better-off to avoid impressment and militia service - have already been al-
luded to, but it is appropriate at this point to look at two other socio-cultural
aspects of fighting for a living, and also to ask how long the soldier might
expect to serve. It should be noted at the outset that the labour market
for soldiers was an international one throughout the period. Foreigners
constituted a significant and sometimes the majority element within
armies. For instance, around 70 per cent of Francis I's forces in 1542 were
non-native, though the record probably goes to Sweden: only 12 per cent
of its forces in 1632 were native. 89 Such examples may not represent the
norm, but it nonetheless remained common for a ruler to have half his
forces made up of foreigners. One reason for this high percentage figure in
the sixteenth century was the need to employ specialist troops whose re-
cruitment had a regional basis: Genoese crossbowmen, Albanian stradiots,
German Reiter able to perform the complex manoeuvres associated with
the caracole, Bohemian users of the Wagenburg, Savoyard light cavalry, and
Swiss pikemen. Thus, in France a memoir prepared for Catherine de Medici,
the queen mother, at the start of the first civil war in 1562, envisaged using
foreign contract troops to provide 53.8 per cent of the crown's infantry
forces (10.8 per cent Swiss, 27 per cent German, 8 per cent Italian, and 8 per
cent Spanish) and 48.6 per cent of the cavalry (21 per cent Flemish, 25.6 per
cent German, 2 per cent Savoyard). 90 The development of general military
contracting further eroded the distinction between native and non-native
troops. The enterprisers' polyglot forces came from every nationality. As
Parrott observes, high-quality soldiers were important; origins were not. 91
A shift in the methods of recruitment after c. 1650, with an increased em-
phasis on impressment, militia, and recruiting by commissioned captains,
reasserted the importance of national origins, since the captains were often
subjects of the prince whom they served. Nevertheless, foreigners continued
to represent a substantial proportion of the state's forces, ranging from 14
to 60 per cent in the armies of Britain, France, Spain, and Prussia, though
in the case of the latter many so-called foreigners were actually recruited
89 Potter, A History of France, 7460-7560, p. 261; Nordmann, "L'armee suedoise auXVIIe siecle",
p. 136.
90 Wood, The King's Army, derived from table 2.8, p. 56.
91 Parrott, "From Military Enterprise to Standing Armies", p. 82.
158
FRANK TALLETT
from Hohenzollern lands. 92 The pattern evidenced by the larger states
held good for many smaller ones too. Thus in 1734 Piedmont fielded 14,000
foreigners and 26,000 native troops, the non-native contingent compris-
ing some 35 per cent of the total. 93 In the context of increased army size,
non-national recruitment remained a resource that was too important
to ignore. One incidental consequence of the international nature of the
labour market for soldiers was the high levels of migration, particularly
from fertile recruiting grounds such as sixteenth-century Italy and Ireland
throughout the period. 94
If national origins presented little bar to army service, what about gender?
This may seem a curious question to pose, given that combatant soldiers
were male. But what John Lynn has called the "campaign community" com-
prised a large number of civilians - craftsmen, lackeys, tradesmen, sutlers,
carters, and pawnbrokers, for example. The army's "tail" included numerous
women, though they did not figure on any muster lists. 95 Their presence in
armies was essential. They formed part of the libertine lifestyle that induced
men to sign on; and they were integral to the maintenance and operation
of armies. They were irreplaceable for the performance of gender-based
duties: laundering, sewing, nursing, prostitution. They were also expected
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to assist with siege work, digging
latrines, foraging, and pillaging. As governments acted to reduce pillage
and as the state's capacity to pay and supply armies grew in the eighteenth
century, so women's role in securing food supplies declined. Governments,
which had always regarded women in armies as potentially troublesome
and as extra mouths to feed, now acted to restrict their numbers. Fewer
women than previously marched with the armies, and as numbers of women
diminished so too did the soldier's freewheeling libertine lifestyle.
What of the length and terms of service? Sixteenth-century contract troops
were the most privileged in these respects. Their period of service was defined
by the Bestallung and was usually limited to fighting a particular campaign.
The contract also set out the conditions of service. Thus, 5,000 German troops
contracted for service in Friuli refused orders from their Venetian employers
92 Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates and Sovereigns, p. 29 table 2.1, pp. 26-32; Fann, "Foreigners
in the Prussian Army"; Duffy, The Army of Maria Theresa, p. 55.
93 Loriga, Soldats - Un laboratoire disciplinaire, pp. 36-37, and tables 1/1 and 1/3, pp. 237-239.
94 Dubost, La France italienne au XVIe etXVIIe siecles, esp. pp. 60-65; Arfaioli, The Black
Bands of Giovanni; Henry, "Wild Geese in Spanish Flanders", p. 193; Genet Rouff lac and Murphy,
Franco-Irish Military Connections, isgo-rg45.
95 Lynn, Women, Armies, and Warfare in Early Modern Europe; Wilson, "German Women and
War, 1500-1800".
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
159
redirecting them to the fleet because their original contract had ruled out
their use at sea. 96 Additionally, they were in theory free to choose their em-
ployer, though in practice this choice might be restricted, since governments
in the sixteenth century felt it worthwhile paying retainers to contractors to
ensure first call on their services in the event of hostilities. 97 The hard-won
victory of Francis I against the Swiss at Marignano (September 1515) ironically
encouraged the French to make permanent treaties with the Swiss cantons to
ensure a monopoly over their outstanding pikemen. 98 Moreover, the leaders of
contract forces sometimes received grants of land and titles that made it hard
for them to switch sides; they were reluctant to change during a campaign
lest they lose arrears of pay and taxes from their current employer; and they
had to consider geographical proximity and political relationships with a
prospective employer before signing any contract.
Unlike sixteenth-century contract troops, volunteers who signed on with
a captain made an open-ended agreement, to serve until disbandment at the
end of the campaign or the war, whenever that might be. In practice, troops
were frequently laid off in the autumn, especially in the first half of our
period. Impressed men had no choice with regard to the length and terms
of employment, and there was a trend in the eighteenth century, especially
in some German states, to extend the period of service dramatically. For
example, service in the Prussian army for those who had been forcibly
drafted was theoretically for an unlimited period, though it was restricted
to twenty years in 1792. In practice, however, many recruits were discharged
early, and most received long periods of furlough allowing them to return
home at harvest time. 99 The extension of periods of service went alongside
a trend towards retaining a body of men throughout the year, leading to the
establishment of permanent forces. True, this was not a novelty. Standing
armies had emerged in many polities during the fifteenth century, and
rulers additionally endeavoured to secure the ongoing availability of forces
(not quite the same thing) by paying retainers to military contractors and
through treaties with the Swiss cantons, as I have noted. But from the late
seventeenth century onwards, the number of soldiers retained by the state
throughout the year grew quite significantly. 100 The need for peacetime
forces grew with the decline of traditional and general contracting which
96 Mallett and Hale, The Military Organization of a Renaissance State, p. 319.
97 See ibid., pp. 322-323; Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, p. 39, for examples.
98 Potter, A History of France, 7460-7560, pp. 264-265.
99 Wilson, "Social Militarization in Eighteenth Century Germany", pp. 5, 16.
100 Tallett and Trim, '"Then Was Then and Now is Now'", p. 22, and Gunn, "War and the Emer-
gence of the State", pp. 54-58.
160
FRANK TALLETT
made it harder to hire an army "off the shelf". A permanently retained body
of forces, especially if they were veterans, provided the core around which
the army could be expanded rapidly in wartime.
Once enrolled in the army, all soldiers were forbidden to desert, and
only sixteenth-century contract troops had the opportunity (at least in
theory) of changing sides during a war should the current employer not
fulfil his side of the agreement. Desertion and enlisting with the enemy
were offences that figured in all military codes of conduct. As with much
else to do with army life, there were efforts from c. 1650 onwards to enforce
these twin aspects of the disciplinary codes in an attempt to enhance the
fighting efficiency of armies.
Aggregate contract to state commission armies?
Our review of early modern soldiers suggests that the broad outlines con-
cerning the evolution of army style advanced by John Lynn in 1996 hold
good. 101 The aggregate contract army (1450-1650) was indeed pieced together
by a variety of voluntary and involuntary methods, as well as through a
quasi-feudal procedure that was a mixture of the two. The second half of our
period (1650-1790) witnessed the development of the state commission army,
a military force that was both better supported by the state and more tightly
controlled by the prince. Regulation, discipline, and uniformity increasingly
became the order of the day, and there was a growing move towards the
direct state supply of goods that the soldier had previously been expected
to provide himself, albeit this was generally conducted through the employ-
ment of private financiers and merchants. Numbers of soldiers increased,
and the period witnessed the development of an existing trend towards
the maintenance of standing forces. The Spanish Army of Flanders and the
Swedes had been the paradigm forces in the period 1500-1650. After that
point, two competing models emerged: the Dutch, who used subsidy forces,
and the French army under Louis XIV, the latter being displaced by the Prus-
sians, who became the paradigm for Europeans from the mid-eighteenth
century until their defeats during the Wars of the French Revolution and
debacle in 1806. However, if the broad outlines of Lynn's thesis remain intact,
some amendments are called for, as he has acknowledged.
It is important to stress the continuing importance of both entrepreneur-
ship and the nobility in recruiting and supporting armies throughout the
101 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West".
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
161
period and not just between 1500 and 1650. Traditional contracting as well
as general contracting did go into steep decline after the mid-seventeenth
century. Yet the commercialization of warfare continued in two important
respects. First, the role of the nobility, who had always been integral to the
raising of forces, was developed in novel ways. Monarchs continued to play
upon the longstanding twinning of military service and noble status to
persuade their elites both to join the army and to bring men with them. As
we have seen, in some armies, most notably that of France, the introduction
of a system of venality further encouraged them to use their private wealth
and influence to recruit and support troops in the hope of a profit in the
long term. Elsewhere, the hope of profit from the management of a company
similarly persuaded them to put their money and prestige at the service of
the monarch. The regiment was undoubtedly under greater state control in
the eighteenth century, but entrepreneurship endured. We should not be
surprised by this continued use of the nobility, for much recent scholarship
has stressed the extent to which rulers, even in supposedly "absolute" states,
relied upon negotiation and compromise with the social and financial
elites - whether these comprised the traditional nobility, members of the
court, provincial worthies, administrative and legal personnel, merchants,
or others - to conduct business. This was especially the case with respect
to the creation and maintenance of an army, a body of a size and cost
unmatched by any other institution in the state. As David Parrott has
noted, "The creation or transformation of an army is not some act of will
imposed by the ruler upon a passive body of subjects. Armies and military
institutions represent the relationship between rulers and political elites." 102
The commercialization of warfare endured in a second way. A number of
mainly German polities, but also Savoy and Sweden for brief periods, began
to lease their forces to larger, and richer, states in return for the payment
of subsidies. The hire of soldiers for monetary gain to the highest bidder,
with little regard for the welfare of the men involved, has led to it being
described slightingly as Soldatenhandel (soldier-trade); and the ruler of
Hesse-Cassel in particular has been vilified for apparently bemoaning the
fact that "only" 1,465 of his subjects were killed at the battle of Trenton when
the British paid a premium for those killed in action rather than for those
wounded or captured. 103 Of course, we should not exaggerate the commercial
aspect of this soldier-trade. As Peter Wilson has demonstrated, much more
102 Parrott, "From Military Enterprise to Standing Armies", p. 77.
103 Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State, p. 1; Wilson, War, State and Society in Wurttemberg,
pp. 74-77, reviews the literature.
162
FRANK TALLETT
than money was involved, the princes who hired out their subjects being
concerned at least as much with the political, dynastic, and diplomatic
returns to be gained. Indeed, the purely cash profits were frequently quite
small or non-existent, most of the subsidy being eaten up by the costs of
recruitment. Among the fortunate few to turn a monetary profit were
Hanover and the much smaller Ansbach-Bayreuth in 1797. Hesse-Cassel too
stood out by virtue of its exceptionality in making large profits from the
soldier-trade. Moreover, German states were discriminating when choosing
subsidy partners, not always going for the highest bidder; and contracts
generally contained clauses protecting the rights of the soldiers by, for
instance, insisting that they be kept together as a unit and operate under
the command of their own officers. Nevertheless, even when these caveats
are taken into account, there remained an important commercial aspect
to this Kriegshandwerk, or "warcraft". 104
The Soldatenhandel poses a more significant difficulty for Lynn's tax-
onomy of army style, which needs to be adjusted accordingly, as he has
proposed. 105 This is because these hired regiments exhibited characteristics
both of mercenary forces and of conscript troops at the same time. The
term "mercenary" in the early modern period has to be defined with care.
Modern definitions centre upon the tripartite notions of fighting for pay,
foreign service, and professionalism, and these have frequently and inap-
propriately been transposed to the early modern period. 106 However, none
of these qualities quite captures the essence of mercenary service in early
modern Europe. First, after c. 1650 all soldiers expected to be paid, but
that did not make them all mercenaries. Before 1650 pay was only one
form of compensation for soldiering. Yet even if we extend the concept of
monetary reward beyond pay to include the profits that soldiers hoped to
make from ransoms and from pillage, this does not take us much further,
since again all hoped to make a profit in this fashion. Secondly, the notion of
foreign service is potentially misleading. To be sure, there is some reason to
104 Wilson, "The German 'Soldier-Trade' of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries", War,
State and Society in Wurttemberg, pp. 84, 89; Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State, p. 127.
105 Lynn, "Comments on Mercenary Military Service in Early Modern Europe", pp. 1-3.
106 For a recent definition, see United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Ad Hoc Com-
mittee on the Drafting of an International Convention against the Recruitment, Use and Training
of Mercenaries (1982). M. Mallett stresses the concepts of fighting for profit and foreignness
("Mercenaries", p. 209), though De Vries takes issue with this definition ("Medieval Mercenar-
ies"). See also the comments by France in the same volume ("Introduction"). For an excellent
overview of early modern mercenaries, see Sikora, "Soldner". The diary of Peter Hagendorf
provides first-hand testimony into the life of a seventeenth-century mercenary: Hagendorf and
Peters, Ein Soldnerleben im Dreifiigjahrigen Krieg.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
163
equate mercenaries with foreigners because many of them in the sixteenth
century were specialists with some regional basis for their recruitment.
The instances of the Genoese crossbowmen, Albanian stradiots, German
Landsknechte and Reiter, Savoyard light cavalry, and Swiss pikemen have
already been noted. 107 But all early modern armies contained large numbers
of "foreign" troops, not all of whom were described as mercenaries and,
conversely, there were many native recruits who volunteered to serve their
ruler but who would be described as mercenaries. Thus, Thomas Churchyard
referred to "mercenaries" taken by the Earl of Essex to Ireland, even though
they were mostly men from Queen Elizabeth's domains. 108 Finally, profes-
sionalism: this has to do with expertise, standards, and longevity in service
and, while well-established mercenary units, such as the Landsknechte
and Reiter for example, would be expected to display these characteristics,
professionalism could equally be a characteristic of non-mercenary forces. 109
These points are thrown into sharper focus if we establish what the iden-
tifying characteristics of the early modern mercenary actually were. First
was the notion that they were "hyred souldiers", as one sixteenth-century
chronicler put it. 110 A second and related point was the notion of free agency.
The mercenary was not obliged to fight, by reason of feudal obligation or
impressment, for example. He had a choice about whether to serve. Finally,
the mercenary had no interest in the cause but fought simply for his own
private interest. It is the second of these three, interlocking characteristics
that raises problems for the classification of the eighteenth-century Sol-
datenhandel. The soldiers involved in it were hired, and they had no direct
interest in the cause, and in these twin respects they were mercenaries, but
many of them were not free agents since they had been forcibly recruited into
their ruler's army, either through impressment or the militia system (or some
variant of it). This implies the need for a new category in Lynn's taxonomy.
He suggests a hybrid category, that of the "conscript-mercenary". 111
Discussion of mercenaries leads to a final area in which Lynn's model
needs to be adjusted. He points to the unreliability of the aggregate contract
107 Though these contingents were actually not as homogeneous as is usually supposed and
the geographical origins of "German" or "Swiss" units could be quite diverse. The Swiss were
occasionally referred to as "Allemans", and Landsknechte could be recruited in Guelders, the
Vaud, and Savoy: Baumann, Landsknecht; Potter, Renaissance France, p. 131.
108 The Fortunate Farewell to the Most Forward and Noble Earl of Essex (London, 1599), inNichols,
The Progresses and Public Progressions of Queen Elizabeth, p. 433.
109 Trim, The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism, esp. pp. 3-30.
110 Quoted in Trim, "Fighting 'Jacob's Wars'", p. 80.
111 Lynn, "Comments on Mercenary Military Service in Early Modern Europe", pp. 7-8.
164
FRANK TALLETT
army largely because it "was composed in the main of mercenary bands"
with the consequence that troops felt little loyalty to the ruler they fought
for and were ready to turn on their employer, to pillage his subjects, and to
mutiny. 112 But is such a judgement on mercenaries justified? Early modern
contemporaries certainly had a low opinion of them, but this sprang from
a distaste for men who made war a profession rather than a vocation, not
from any criticism of their fighting abilities. 113 So long as they were paid,
mercenaries were loyal and prepared to fight to the death if necessary.
Thus, at the battle of Dreux (1562) the whole Landsknecht regiment fight-
ing for the Protestants was killed or captured while there were very high
casualties among the Swiss infantry fighting in the royal army. 114 Potter
has concluded that in the sixteenth century mercenaries were employed
precisely because "they were the best men available [...] and usually, they did
their job effectively"; and Parrott reaches similar conclusions with respect
to the forces of the general contractors of the subsequent century. 115 Thus
the employment of mercenaries did not of itself render an army unreliable:
quite the contrary, for they proved loyal and effective fighters. Failure to
pay them meant they downed arms, mutinied, and turned to pillage. But, as
I noted earlier, this was what all troops did in such circumstances, though
mercenaries may have attracted the greatest attention and opprobrium.
Whatever its composition, any army that went without pay and supplies
was liable to desertion, mutiny, disorder, and pillage.
The drivers of change
John Lynn's taxonomy proposing a shift from an aggregate contract to a state
commission army in the early modern period thus appears broadly correct.
But what were the reasons for the change? Technological innovation has
traditionally been privileged as an explanatory factor in military matters.
However, what is notable about the period as a whole is the relative lack of
novelty with regard to weapons systems and the slowness of their deploy-
112 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West", p. 517.
113 This was a significant factor for Machiavelli, who deplored "men who make war their
only calling", even though he also had little regard for their loyalty and fighting qualities. See
Machiavelli, Arte della Guerra: Machiavelli, The Art of War, Wood (ed.), p. 20.
114 Wood, The King's Army, pp. 120, 199.
115 Potter, Renaissance France at War, p. 151; Parrott, "From Military Enterprise to Standing
Armies", pp. 83-85. See too the favourable comments on mercenaries in fifteenth-century Italy
in Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters, pp. 185, 195-198, 242.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
165
ment. Pikes gradually gave way to hand-held firearms, and artillery came
to have a significant place on the battlefield, but the pace of innovation
was slow, and of itself purely technological innovation played little part in
the transformation of army style.
Rather than highlighting the "material technology" of conflict as a driver
of change, we would do better to concentrate on the "social technology" 116
of warfare, especially the role of discipline, army size, and institutional
structures. As noted earlier, one of the features of the state commission
army was the attempt to enforce higher standards of discipline. Contrary to
what has been argued by proponents of the "military revolution", discipline
was not primarily imposed as a means of ensuring that soldiers were able
to handle their weapons and manoeuvre effectively on the battlefield,
though these were certainly significant byproducts. 117 Rather, discipline
was necessary to avoid the resort to pillaging, mutiny, and disorder that
all too often paralysed armies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
This was why the enforcement of discipline was only one of a package of
measures designed to address these issues: paying soldiers more regularly;
supplying them directly with items such as clothing, food, equipment, and
housing; taking ransoms out of the hands of ordinary soldiers; restricting
the number of women and "hangers-on" who travelled with the army; and
limiting the ability of elite units to bargain over pay and conditions.
The rationale behind all these measures was the urgent necessity of
making armies more effective as instruments of state power. This was also
why the number of men under arms increased, albeit not in linear fashion,
for quantity was as important as quality. A large military establishment
allowed states to recover from defeat, to replace a routed field army, to
sustain the demands of attritional warfare, and to occupy and control
territory. To be sure, it could be argued that in imposing greater central
control of their armies, governments were seeking to save money, and it was
true that they were mindful of the desirability of curbing the activities of
corrupt captains who swindled their own men and the royal treasury. But a
search for economies was not what drove the transition away from aggregate
contract armies, since the state commission forces actually cost more than
their predecessors. They may possibly have been "cheaper man for man"," 8
yet overall they were much more expensive. They were more regularly paid,
they required more state-provided goods and services, and they were far
116 Lynn, "Clio in Arms", p. 92.
117 Rogers, The Military Revolution Debate, is the best introduction to the debate.
118 Lynn, "The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West", p. 519.
166
FRANK TALLETT
more numerous than their predecessors and consequently more costly.
Thus, Joel Felix estimates the additional costs to the French treasury of the
War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years War at a staggering
2-2.5 billion Livres tournois. 119 Though eighteenth-century governments
had a larger resource base on which to draw by comparison with their
predecessors, the result of demographic growth and a burgeoning (and
increasingly global) economy, military costs nevertheless ran well ahead of
resources. To bridge the funding gap, eighteenth-century rulers resorted to
a range of measures which varied from state to state, including raising levels
of taxation, making use of loans, and expropriating resources, albeit with
varying degrees of success. 120 It was not, then, a search for economies that
drove the transition from aggregate contract to state commission armies,
but rather an attempt to make armies more fit for purpose even if this meant
at its most basic level that the army simply stayed in existence.
We should finally recognize that what informed governments in their
search for military efficiency was the intensely competitive relationship
that existed between the states of western Europe that all too often spilled
over into open conflict. The reasons for war were many and varied: dynastic
claims, religion, trade rivalry, territorial aggrandizement, and the pursuit
of gloire. Yet whatever the precise cause of conflict, western Europe was in
a constant condition of tension, and sensible governments used intervals
of peace to prepare for the next round of conflict. No wonder they were
concerned with the war-waging capacities of their armies, for the fate of rul-
ers and even of states might be decided by their military capacities. Portugal,
Siena, and Scotland were absorbed by their larger neighbours as a result of
failures in military campaigns, just as military success was crucial to the
establishment of an independent polity in the case of the Dutch Republic.
In 1742, France and others planned to dismember Austria, Prussia narrowly
escaped such a fate at the commencement of the Seven Years War, Sweden's
dearly won Baltic empire was taken from it, and in 1772 Poland suffered the
first of the partitions that would remove it from the map until 1919. This
intensely competitive nature of the European state system was what the
eminent jurist Emerich Vattel had in mind when he argued for a pre-emptive
right of self-defence by coalitions of states against over-mighty neighbours. 121
119 Felix, "Victualling Louis XV's Armies", p. 1.
120 Scott, "The Fiscal-Military State and International Rivalry during the Long Eighteenth
Century", esp. pp. 34-40, 42-43. On French finances, see Felix and Tallett, "The French Experience,
1661-1815", PP- ^SS-^Slt 160-162, 164-165.
121 Vattel, The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law, bk3 ch. 3.
SOLDIERS IN WESTERN EUROPE, C. 1500-1790
167
The pressures to "keep up" in military terms by imitating or adapting
perceived best practice of paradigm armies were therefore intense. It should
be stressed that these competitive pressures did not operate in some simple
fashion. All states had regard to their own particular circumstances. Some
emphasized the use of impressment and militia service over the recruitment
of volunteers; some preferred to hire troops, others to take subsidies; some
employed especially harsh discipline; some - and Austria would be an
example - were notably slow and inefficient in providing for their soldiers.
Yet the direction of travel was clear: larger armies, stricter discipline, more
direct state supply, and greater state control. The consequences for soldier-
labour were profound. 122
122 It should also be stressed that interstate competition did not lead inevitably to the emergence
of the so-called absolutist or modern state in some Weberian fashion. There were a number of
different national trajectories that could eventuate in the emergence of more or less coercive,
absolutist states that existed alongside polities with quite different constitutional structures
though all had responded to the demands of warfare. See James, "Warfare and the Rise of the
State", pp. 28-29 and passim.
The Scottish mercenary as a migrant
labourer in Europe, 1550-1650 1
James Miller
Between 1550 and 1650 the government in Scotland, whether as the monarch
or as the Privy Council acting in the royal name, permitted more than sixty
levies of troops to fight in continental Europe. This occurred throughout
the period of study but with peaks in the 1570s and the 1620S-1640S, cor-
responding with periods of fighting in the Low Countries and later in the
Germanic lands in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This is summarized in
Table 6.1. As the raising of soldiers to fight overseas also took place before
and after these dates and as there were unofficial levies, despite attempts
to stop them for fear of unrest or political embarrassment, the true extent of
recruitment of men to fight overseas may never be fully known. The size of
a licensed levy varied considerably, from as few as sixty men in the licences
granted to Patrik Murray on 25 March 1602 for service in the Low Countries
and to Thomas Moffat on 23 July 1635 for Swedish service in Prussia, to as
many as several thousands. In at least some instances, for example for the
3,000 men each to Robert Earl of Nithsdale, Alexander Lord Spynie, and
James Sinclair of Murkle on 3 April 1627 for Danish service, these ambitious
targets were not reached; and in the case of others, for example to Robert
Stewart for Poland in 1623, very little, if any, recruiting took place. The
more usual figures mentioned in the licences are 200 or 300 men. With a
proviso in mind about the accuracy and reliability of these figures, it has
been estimated that during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), when the
recruitment of soldiers for overseas service was at its height, as many as
50,000 Scotsmen bore arms in European conflicts. 2
1 I am grateful to Dr David Worthington, Head of the Centre for History, University of the
Highlands and Islands, Dornoch, Scotland, for his help and encouragement with this paper.
2 Murdoch, "Introduction", p. 19. Steve Murdoch and Alexia Grosjean have produced a da-
tabase on Scots active in the military and other walks of life in northern Europe in the period
between 1580 and 1707; this can be accessed at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne.
170
JAMES MILLER
Table 6.1 A summary of some recruitment of soldiers in Scotland between 1550 and 1650 to
join continental armies, as detailed in the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (RPCS)
and other sources. Some of the levies failed to achieve much or to reach the designated
target numbers.
Year Destination Number of men designated in the Source (all RPCS*
source, with name of senior officer unless otherwise
or recruiter in some instances
stated)
1552
France
300 footmen and 400 cavalry, fol-
1, pp. 131-136
lowed by recruitment of "2 ensigns"
(Gilbert Kennedy, 3rd Earl of Cassilis)
1564
Denmark
2,000
XIV, p.XLVII
1568
Denmark
Unknown (Captain Moncur)
1, p. 640
1573
Sweden
1,600 (Archibald Ruthven)
II, p. 235
1573
Sweden
300 (Captain Campbell)
II, p. 238
1573
Low Countries
900, under three separate licences; it
II, pp. 237,256.
is likely that many more went without
licence
1577
Low Countries
13 licences issued - numbers of men
II, p. 643
or Flanders
not specified but possibly 3,500
1577
Danzig
150 (Captain Rentoun)
II, p. 621
1578
Low Countries
200
III, p. 23
1578
"Protestant
100
III, p. 213
service
abroad" (Low
Countries?)
1602
Low Countries
460 (including licence to Patrik
VI, p. 721
Murray)
1602
Sweden
Unknown (Colonel Thomas Ogilvie)
Fischer, p. 70**
1605
Sweden
1,600 foot and 600 cavalry (Sir James
Fischer, p. 71**
Spens)
1607
Sweden
200 cavalry (Robert Kinnaird)
Fischer, p. 71**
1610
Sweden
Unknown
VIII, p. 619
1612
Sweden
300 (Andrew Ramsay's illegal levy)
IX, p. 430
1620
Bohemia
1,500 (Sir Andrew Gray)
XII, pp. 255-259
1621
Unknown
100
XII, p. 412
1622
Low Countries
Unknown (Archibald Campbell,
XIII, p. LVI
7th Earl of Argyle's recruitment for
Spanish service)
1623
Poland
8,000 (Robert Stewart)
XIII, p. LVII
1624
Sweden
1,200 (James Spens)
XIII, p. 478
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650 171
Year
Destination
Number of men designated in the
source, wim name ot senior omcer
or recruiter in some instances
Source (all RPCS*
unless oinerwise
stated)
1625
Count Mans-
300
2nd ser., 1, p. 49
feld's army
(Palatinate)
1626
Denmark
Possibly 3,000 (Sir Donald Mackay,
2nd ser., 1, p. 244
(later Sweden)
Lord Reay)
1627
Denmark
9,000 (probably fewer than 5,000
2nd ser., 1, p. 565
recruited) (Nithsdale-Spynie-Murkle
levies)
1628
Sweden
300 (James Spens)
2nd ser., II, p. 397
1629
Low Countries
Unknown (Hay of Kinfauns)
2nd ser., Ill, p. 99
1629
Sweden
1,200 (Alexander Hamilton), 1,200 (Sir
2nd ser., Ill,
George Cuninghame)
pp. 136, 208
1631
Sweden
2,000 (Sir Donald Mackay, Lord Reay)
2nd ser., IV, p. 218
1631
Sweden
6,000 (Sir James Hamilton, Marquis of
Burnet, p. 5***
Hamilton)
1632
Sweden
1,400 (Sir James Lumsden)
2nd ser., IV, p. 483
1632
Sweden
200 (Lt Col McDougall)
2nd ser., IV, p. 525
1633
France
1,200 (Sir John Hepburn)
2nd ser., V, p. 65
1635
Sweden
60 (Thomas Moffat)
2nd ser., VI, p. 65
1636
Low Countries
300 (Lord Almond)
2nd ser., VI, p. 225
1637
France
1,120 (Captain Robert Hume)
2nd ser., VI, p. 401
1637
Sweden
1,200 (Cuninghame, Monro, Stuart)
2nd ser., VI,
pp. 458, 484
1638
France
1,000 (Andrew, Lord Gray)
2nd ser., VII, p. 103
1639
France
2,000 (Colonel Alexander Erskine of
2nd ser., VII,
Mar)
pp. 106, 136
1642
France
6,000 (James Campbell, Earl of Irvine,
2nd ser., VII,
and others)
pp. 247, 281, 302
1656
Sweden
2,500 (William, 3rd Lord Cranstoun)
Fischer, p. 122**
Notes
* Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (1545-1689)
** Fischer, The Scots in Sweden
*** Burnet, The Memoires of the Lives and Actions of James and William Dukes of Hamilton and
Castleherald etc.
It can be argued that the term "mercenary" is not appropriate in describing
these men. The term current in Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries was the phrase "waged men of war" - in Scots, "wageit men of
weare" or variants of it. "Mercenary" remains, however, a convenient word
172
JAMES MILLER
to describe the soldiers who were fighting for a commander or a political
state other than that which from their place of birth or normal residence
could be deemed their own, and it is used here in this sense. In discussions
during the workshops in the Fighting for a Living project, it was suggested
that a "mercenary" had to be free from social ties or obligations, available
to be hired, and with no stake in a conflict other than as a paid man. These
conditions do not apply to all the Scots who fought on the continent of
Europe and, as will be apparent from this chapter, it was often social ties
or obligations that led to them being recruited as soldiers in the first place.
Often, too, their stake in a conflict sprang from religious leanings or a sense
of honour; they were not always serving simply for the money.
The military roles the Scottish mercenaries played in the wars of the
period lie outside the scope of this chapter and are only summarized below. 3
The focus here is on the circumstances or pressures in Scottish society that
led so many to soldier abroad, in practice to constitute a form of migrant
labour, rather than follow another livelihood at home. The chapter briefly
describes the labour conditions they accepted. The information sources
to which we can turn comprise contemporary legal and administrative
records, letters, and other documents. Ordinary soldiers leave little trace in
the records of the period and what does survive as evidence of their actions
and motives is scant and unevenly spread in space and time. Other sources
are the many histories of families and clans: they were usually written much
later than the events they describe and are always subject to embellishment,
but are our only access to a rich oral culture and tradition and, when treated
with care, can provide valuable additional detail.
The socio-economic background
Lying on the periphery of Europe and having a relatively poorly developed
economy, Scotland was open to the experience of economic emigration, a
phenomenon enhanced during the years between 1550 and 1650 by popula-
tion growth and by frequent seasons of severe dearth with resulting high
food prices. 4 Several attempts have been made to estimate the population of
the country in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and they agree that
3 See, for example, Murdoch, Scotland and the Thirty Years' War; Miller, Swords for Hire.
4 Socio-economic conditions are explored in general histories, e.g., Smout, A History of the
Scottish People; Lynch, The Oxford Companion to Scottish History. David Worthington, British
and Irish Emigrants and Exiles in Europe, has an overview of emigration studies.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
173
the total must have stood between 800,000 and a little over 1 million. The
emigration of so many soldiers, therefore, represents the loss, occasionally
temporary but often permanent, of a substantial proportion of the country's
able-bodied young men and immediately provokes the question of why it
took place, when it might appear to have been detrimental to the country's
own well-being.
The bulk of the population was scattered in rural villages and town-
ships, and most burghs were small enough to ensure almost everyone was
closely dependent on a relatively primitive agriculture that was dangerously
susceptible to harvest failure. Time and again evidence of distress occurs in
the historical record, and we find repeated attempts by the authorities to
impose alleviating measures, such as the banning or licensing of the export
of grain and livestock, and even attempting to limit the number of dishes
that could be served at meals (although gradated in number according to
status so that a bishop could have eight, but a burgess only three). 5 On
21 June 1572 the Privy Council ordered people to remove themselves from
the city of Edinburgh to stay with friends in the country where they might
be "best staikit [best provided for]". 6 In the Chronicle of Aberdeen for the
year 1578, we read that at that time there was "a great dearth of all kind of
victuals through all Scotland, that the like was not seen in no man's day
before. The meal was sold for six s[hillings] the peck, the ale for tenpence
the pint, the wine from the best shipment forty pence the pint; fish and
flesh were scant and dear." 7
Epidemics of plague and other diseases added to the woes undergone
by the general population. The Privy Council attempted to counter the
spread of infection through restrictions on travel and the quarantining of
sea travellers. There is no information on the numbers of people affected
by such catastrophes, but their seriousness comes over clearly in what
evidence does survive. In October 1606 the Earl of Dunfermline wrote to
the king that "The tounes of Air and Striveling [Ayr and Stirling] ar almoste
desolat"; this outbreak of plague lasted from 1603 to 1609, and took 500 lives
in Perth in the winter of 1608-1609. 8
For Scots who were free to go, therefore, the incentives to emigrate were
strong. Some moved to England, despite long-standing hostility between
5 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland (7545-1689) 14 vols (Edinburgh, 1877) [henceforth,
RPCS], I, p. 94.
6 Ibid., II, p. 148.
7 Author's translation of Scots original; in "The Chronicle of Aberdeen", Miscellany of the
Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1842), II, p. 47.
8 Letters and State Papers During the Reign of King fames the Sixth, p. 91.
174
JAMES MILLER
the neighbouring nations and the fact that there was legislation in England
targeted against the Scots as enemy aliens. These emigrants, predominantly
men, practised various trades and professions but, unsurprisingly in view
of the frequent outbreaks of warfare between the two countries, none is
listed as having been a soldier. 9 The pathways to the continent were also
well established through trade. In the later sixteenth century the favoured
destination for Scottish emigrants was the Baltic area, in what are now
Poland and its neighbours. Several thousand Scots are estimated to have
taken ship for such ports as Stettin (Szczecin) and Danzig (Gdansk) and
then to have spread throughout central and eastern Europe. 10 Many became
respectable merchants, while others remained poor itinerant pedlars.
Scotland also had a trading base in the town of Veere at the mouth of the
Scheldt - and there was steady traffic across the North Sea. As the Dutch
had embraced Calvinism, a form of Protestantism shared with Scotland,
it is easy to understand why Scots should be drawn to this part of Europe,
where manyjoined the armed struggle in the Netherlands. When he wrote
a prospectus in 1624 to attract settlers to the lands he had been recently
granted in maritime Canada, Sir William Alexander observed that "Scotland
by reason of her populousness being constrained to disburden herself (like
the Bees) did every yeare send forth swarmes, whereof great numbers did
haunt Pole [Poland] with most extreme kind of drudgerie (if not dying
under the burden) scraping a few crummes together, til of late that they
were compelled, abandoning their ordinary calling, to betake themselves
to the warres against Russians, Turks or Swedens." 11 What did the emigrants
expect to find abroad? Overwhelmingly they tried to make a living through
some kind of trade or mercantile activity, making use of family connec-
tions to obtain employment and opportunity. What Sir William Alexander
remarks on - abandoning trade for soldiering - was a response to economic
misfortune wherever there was a demand for men to fill an army's ranks.
Emigration as soldiers
Men also emigrated specifically to find employment as soldiers. The Privy
Council was aware in June 1573 of "a gude nowmer [good number] [...] of
9 Galloway and Murray, "Scottish Emigration to England 1400-1560".
10 See, for example, Fischer, The Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia; and the international
conference on "Scotland and Poland, a Historical Relationship, 1500-2009", Edinburgh, 2009.
11 "Prospectus of the Colony of New Scotland, 1624", quoted in Davidson, The Davidsons, p. 153.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
175
this realm" prepared to go abroad "under pretens to serve in the wearis
[wars] in foreyn countries". 12 The Council also saw an opportunity here to
relieve social pressure at home: in 1572, mindful of "the present hunger,
derth and scarcitie of viveris [scarcity of food]", it allowed men freely to
travel to the Low Countries to fight in the cause of Dutch independence. 13
The licensing of recruitment was an attempt on the part of government
to control what was already happening irrespective of the wishes of the
authorities and, perhaps more importantly, counter any attempt to hide an
armed conspiracy under the cloak of recruitment for overseas service. In
September 1587 the Privy Council issued a proclamation to be read at the
market crosses in all the main burghs forbidding anyone to raise "bandis
of men of weare [bands of men of war]" or to put themselves in arms, enrol
under any captain, or go abroad as a soldier without royal licence. 14 It was
forbidden to attract soldiers away from royal service and for levies to as-
semble within sixteen miles of the young James VI's residence at Stirling
Castle. Recruiting captains were urged to embark their men at the nearest
port, and at times were ordered to recruit without using drums, presumably
for fear of rousing excitement or animosity in the general populace. Coping
with the unruly behaviour of mobs of would-be soldiers on their way to
seaports was a concern of the Privy Council in 1605, and the presence in the
country in 1609 of two companies of Irish mercenaries forced by bad weather
to land at Peterhead while en route to Sweden worried the Council greatly. 15
As an example of an unofficial levy that was also declared illegal, we have
the episode in 1612 when the Privy Council tried to prevent recruitment
for service in the Swedish army against Denmark. The Council informed
James VI, now resident in London as the king of Britain, that men had been
violently pressed and taken against their will. Official attempts by the Privy
Council to nip the levy in the bud included searching ships about to sail,
ordering the discharge of recruits, and summoning to its presence Alex-
ander Ramsay, the senior officer (who did not appear and was thereafter
denounced as a rebel). 16
12 RPCS, II, p. 235.
13 Ibid., II, p. 148.
14 Ibid., IV, p. 211.
15 Ibid., VIII, p. 390.
16 Ibid., IX, pp. 430-461.
176
JAMES MILLER
Indigenous military practices
One factor that made soldiering a viable option for young men going abroad
and enhanced the feasibility of recruiting was the long tradition in the
country of armed service. It was the custom for nobles to keep trains of
armed men. The traditional view of Scotland as a country where, up until
the Treaty of Union in 1707, the tension between the monarch and the
nobility often caused the latter to break into rebellion or take up arms in
pursuit of their own interests against either the crown or each other has
been queried by recent historians, but it remains true that feuding, raiding,
and the signing of bonds of manrent were common and that Scotland was a
country prone to the violent resolution of difference. 17 Comments from the
writings of John Major (or Mair) are relevant here. "If two nobles of equal
rank happen to be very near neighbours, quarrels and even shedding of
blood are a common thing between them; and their very retainers cannot
meet without strife", he observed in 1521 in his History of Great Britain. "The
farmers [...] keep a horse and weapons of war, and are ready to take part
in [their lord's] quarrel, be it just or unjust, with any powerful lord, if they
only have a liking for him, and with him, if need be, to fight to the death.
The farmers have further this fault: that they do not bring up their sons to
any handicraft. Shoemakers, tailors, and all such craftsmen they reckon as
contemptible and unfit for war." 18 Major was more critical of Highlanders:
"They are full of mutual dissensions, and war rather than peace is their
normal condition. The Scottish kings have with difficulty been able to
withstand the inroads of these men." 19
The social structure of the country was complicated by major cultural
differences between the various regions, the most important being the
one between what can be usefully, though crudely, termed the Lowlands
and the Highlands, a cultural frontier often termed the Highland Line.
John Major was aware of this but it is also commented upon by John of
Fordun, a cleric who wrote what is regarded as the first full-scale history
of Scotland in the mid-fourteenth century: "The people of the coast are of
domestic and civilised habits, trusty, patient and urbane, decent in their
attire, affable and peaceful, devout in divine worship, yet always prone to
resist a wrong at the hands of their enemies. The highlanders and people of
the islands, on the other hand, are a savage and untamed nation, rude and
17 Wormald, Lords and Men in Scotland; Grant, Independence and Nationhood.
18 Hume Brown, Scotland before 7700 from Contemporary Documents, pp. 58-59.
19 Ibid., p. 60.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
177
independent, given to rapine." 20 Fordun's view was biased, but the cultural
divide had become real by his lifetime. His "savage and untamed nation"
comprised of course the mainly Gaelic-speaking clan society that played
a prominent part in the Jacobite risings of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. This was a largely pastoral culture with a strong warrior ethos,
grouped in kindreds and adherents holding territories, very prone to feuding
with each other and capable of moving quickly into military mode. Within
clan or kindred, blood relationships were important, and war parties of
the clan were usually commanded by the chief himself or blood relatives.
Writing in 1578, Bishop John Leslie, himself Highland born, showed that this
warrior society persisted for a very long time: "A peculiar and proper vice
is among these men, and to their well-being most pestilent, that naturally
they are fond willingly and vehemently, if their masters command them,
to sedition and strife: they rather be esteemed as noble, or at least as bold
men of war, than as labourers of the ground or men of craft, irrespective
of poverty or riches." 21
Mention should be made in passing of a special class of mercenary soldier
that sprang from the Gaelic Highland world. This was the "galloglass", a term
Anglicized from the Gaelic word galloglaigh, meaning "foreign warrior".
They were a restricted class of professional fighters from the western sea-
board of the Highlands who found service in the retinues of Irish chieftains
from the thirteenth century until the early 1600s. A few found service in
Sweden during the Thirty Years War but, as a specialized group, they lie
outside the main scope of this chapter. 22
In the south of Scotland, in the Borders, the country marking the frontier
with England, in the same period existed a society similar to that of the
clans in having a pastoral economy and a predilection for raiding and feud-
ing. Here there were kindreds loyal to particular territory-holding families
who could switch easily into military mode. In Bishop Leslie's opinion
in 1578, fear of war inhibited the cultivation of the soil among them. The
similarity between Highlander and Borderer was recognized at the time:
"The roll of the clans that have captains, chiefs and chieftains on whom
they depend often against the will of their landlords on the Borders as in
the Highlands." 23
20 Ibid., p. 12.
21 Author's translation of Scots original from ibid., pp. 165-166.
22 A general introduction can be found in Cannan, Galloglass.
23 Author's translation of Scots original, RPCS, IV, p. 782.
178
JAMES MILLER
Between the Highland and Border regions, in which the Scottish
monarchy had a continuous struggle to maintain some hegemony, lay the
Lowlands where approximately 60 per cent, from the best estimates, of
the population lived, in a society divided between rural settlements and
larger burghs. This region formed a belt across the centre of the country
and extended up the east coast to the environs of Aberdeen and beyond to
the Moray Firth. Presumably these were the people Fordun considered of
domestic and civilized habit, yet in his study of bloodfeud in Scotland, K.M.
Brown noted that 40 per cent of the 365 feuds he identified as occurring
between 1573 and 1625 took place in the Lowlands with a further 23 per
cent in the Borders. 24
Although the Highlands and the Borders had the potential to be a
good recruiting ground, it is significant that, as far as we can tell from the
surviving evidence, including the names of the men involved, the bulk
of the recruiting for overseas service took place in the Lowlands, in the
most settled part of Scotland. The recruitment of soldiers in the Highlands
did not become significant until quite late in the period of study, when
Mackay's Regiment was raised in 1626. One of Mackay's officers, Robert
Monro, named the senior Scottish officers in Swedish service in 1632: of the
thirty colonels in his list, nine are known to have come from the Lowlands
or the north-east; another sixteen probably from the same regions, judging
by their surnames; only four from the Highlands; and one, the son of Scots
emigrants, actually from Finland. Of the fifty-two lieutenant colonels in
Monro's list, only six are Highland, and five of these are from the Lowland-
influenced parts on the east coast. 25
In his major work on the Scots Brigade in the Netherlands, James Fergu-
son provides plenty of evidence for the Lowland contribution to this notable
example of Scottish military service abroad. 26 To give one example, in a
document concerning soldiers to be paid after the death of their captain,
Archibald Arskin (Erskine) at Zwolle in December 1608, of the forty-one
legible signatures, fifteen are indisputably Scots and a further ten could be
Scots, and the names suggest a Lowland origin for all of them. As a general
comment, Ferguson says in his introduction: Forth-side counties, especially
Fife, "had the closest connection with the brigade, but Perthshire, Forfar,
Aberdeenshire and the Highlands, more especially after General Mackay
[1640-1692] entered it, and other parts of Scotland had their representatives
24 Brown, Bloodfeud in Scotland 15/3-1625, p. 5.
25 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment.
26 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of the United Netherlands.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
179
under its colours". 27 The General Mackay referred to is Hugh Mackay of
Scourie (c. 1640-1692), with no connection to the earlier Mackay's Regiment.
Proximity to the east-coast ports and ease of travel played an obvious part
in this preponderance of recruitment in the Lowlands but, as we have seen,
the Lowlands were only relatively more peaceful and ordered than the
farther-flung Highlands.
The nobles were capable of laying aside their own differences, at least to
some extent, when an external threat appeared - always from England. In
February 1546, for example, the Privy Council called on two Border families
- the Kerrs of Cessford and Ferniehurst, and the Scotts of Branxholme - to
set aside their own raids on each other "during the time of this present war
between the realms of Scotland and England" and instead seek redress
through the courts of law. 28 The Minute in the Privy Council papers gives a
vivid impression of the kindreds involved in these quarrels when it details
"their kin, friends, men, tenants, adherents, allies and supporters" as coming
under the order. Robert I (1274-1329) was able through violent suppression
of his enemies to unite much of the country behind him during the Wars of
Independence. His army contained men from different parts of the country,
Highland as well as Lowland and Border, but despite such periods of near
unity it remained true for most of the Stewart period, from 1371 onwards,
that the levying of troops to prosecute the many outbreaks of hostilities
with England was primarily a Lowland affair, with only a relatively small
contribution of men from the southern edges of the Highlands and from the
Borders. In a national emergency, though, the propensity of the Borderers
for raiding and feuding allowed the rapid raising of a skilled and mobile
cavalry force. This is described in a Minute in the papers of the Privy Council
in October 1545: it charges three commissioners with the raising of 1,000
horsemen to "pass and remain upon the Borders for the space of three
months for defence of the realm against our old enemy of England", and
notes that they will be paid from an allotted sum of £18,000 Scots. 29
At various times during the sixteenth century the Privy Council ordered
a full levy of foot and horse. The example, noted in the Register of the Privy
Council for 21 August 1546, to muster men for the siege and capture of Saint
Andrews Castle, divided the realm into four parts, which included the
sweep of coastal territory up the east coast via Aberdeen to the shores of the
Moray Firth. All four were mainly part of the Lowlands and only impinged
27 Ibid., I, p. xxv.
28 RPCS, I, p. 22.
29 Ibid., I, p. 16.
180
JAMES MILLER
on the Highlands, although there were also at times Highland elements in
the assembled army. 30 Such summonses were proclaimed at market crosses
in all the burghs, and called on men between the ages of sixteen and sixty,
dwelling in the countryside or in the towns, to assemble for military service
with their weapons and enough provisions for twenty days. The resulting
army was commonly called the Scottish host. A significant feature of the
system was that it allowed the monarch to raise an army at minimum cost
to the usually impoverished royal treasury, as the men called on to fill the
ranks were unpaid.
To maintain a degree of preparedness for fighting there existed a system
of training called wappenschaws (weapon shows) held at regular intervals in
local districts. The first relevant act, in 1424 during the reign of James I, called
on all men to begin training in archery when they reached the age of twelve
years. The wappenschaw acts were reconfirmed and amended throughout the
following years and reigns some fifteen times before 1600. This was partly to
promote them when they had lapsed and partly to keep pace with technologi-
cal change. In 1456 we come upon the first mentions of artillery: "it is thought
expedient that the king make request to certain of the great barons of the land
that are of might to make carts of war, and each of them to have two guns,
and each of them to have two chambers with the remnant of the gear that is
appropriate thereto, with cunning [skilled] men to shoot them. And if they
have no craft in shooting them, as now, they may learn before the time comes
that it will be needful to have them." 31 Hand guns in the form of hackbuts are
first mentioned in the wappenschaw legislation in 1535. Every man who held
land to the value of £100 was required to have a gun and people trained in
its use. Fines of livestock or money were imposed upon defaulters who failed
to attend wappenschaws. Those who had no skill for archery were called on
to appear with hand weapons such as a spear or axe. This act from the reign
of James II (1437-1460) is illustrative of the wappenschaw system and also
reveals why it may not always have been popular among the common people.
"It is decreed and ordained that wappinschawings be held by the lords and
barons, spiritual and temporal, four times in the year, and that football and
golf be utterly cried down and disused, and that the bow-marks be made at
each parish kirk, a pair of butts, and shooting be made each Sunday. And that
each man shoot six shots at the least under the pain to be raised upon them
that come not; at the least 2d to be given to them that come to the bowmark
30 Ibid., I, p. 38.
31 Ref James II 1456/5 in Records of 'the Parliaments of Scotland to ijoj, available athttp://www.
rps.ac.uk (accessed 3 February 2011).
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650 l8l
to drink. And this to be used from Christmas till Allhallowmass after [...]
And as touching the football and the golf we ordain it to be punished by
the baron's fine." 32 The ordinary men of the realm may have preferred their
football or their golf to spending what little time they had free from labour
in a kind of home guard. Surviving court books from burghs and baronies
contain references to men being fined for failure to attend the wappenschaw.
For example, the Court Book of the Barony of Leys in Aberdeenshire states,
regarding a wappenschaw held on 24 January 1626, that on the following day
fourteen men who had failed to attend were fined between 10s and 40s each. 33
Despite some resistance to attending training, by the time of the main
period of recruitment for armed service in Europe, there was a pool of
manpower with at least some basic military experience on which to draw.
There was also a ready precedent for sending troops abroad. In the early
fifteenth century, contingents of men, several thousand strong, had been
sent to France to fight for the Dauphin against the English. Before that
period, individual knights had gone abroad from Scotland to fight in vari-
ous conflicts but this was the first time there was a deliberate export of
soldiers to aid a continental ally, a significant episode in the long-standing
relationship between France and Scotland, known as the Auld Alliance. The
Alliance also produced the Garde Ecossais, a small elite unit that comprised
part of the French royal bodyguard. 34 An attempt to reinvigorate this al-
liance in the mid-sixteenth century led to the raising of more troops for
service in France. In 1552, the Privy Council ordered commissioners "over
all parts of the realm" - though significantly no commissioner is named for
the western Highlands - "to vesy [recruit] the men of the shire, including
the men in the burghs if they are said to be able and reliable" to go to France.
The same order included the raising of 400 horsemen in the Borders and
the Lowlands for the same service. 35
"The laudable profession of arms"
Against this sixteenth-century background of economic hardship and
emigration stands a major factor in our study - the attitude of the noble
32 Hume Brown, Scotland before 7700 from Contemporary Documents, p. 26.
33 "Court Book of the Barony of Leys", in Miscellany of the Spalding Club (Aberdeen, 1852), V,
p. 223.
34 See, for example, Macdougall, "An Antidote to the English".
35 RPCS, I, p. 134.
182
JAMES MILLER
and landowning classes to warfare, an attitude summed up in the phrase
coined by Robert Monro in his account published in 1637 of his experiences
in Mackay's Regiment in the Thirty Years War and used as a heading above. 36
For this section of society being a soldier was a natural calling. In his study
of this class, in Noble Society in Scotland, Keith Brown describes how the
nobility held a martial ethos as an "integral facet of their identity". 37 In the
system of national defence the nobility provided the monarch with his
officer corps and also, through their tenants, with his manpower. In turn the
non-noble landowners, the lairds, imitated the actions and shared the at-
titudes of their social superiors. In the period under study, the revolt against
Spanish hegemony in the Low Countries and from 1618 the Thirty Years
War, with smaller outbreaks of warfare elsewhere across the continent,
offered plenty of opportunity for the members of these leading classes to
exercise their love of arms and, in the process, they hoped, win fortune as
well as glory. The temptation was particularly strong for those unlikely to
inherit family wealth - younger sons, illegitimate sons - and those with
a military talent but no patron to help them up the social ladder at home.
In his book, Robert Monro talks of his comrades as "worthy Cavaliers [...]
whereof some from meane condition have risen to supreme honour, wealth
and dignitie". 38 Finding employment as soldiers on the continent became
almost a tradition in a few extended families: from the family of the Lords
Forbes, three younger brothers, all sons of the tenth Lord Forbes, and the
illegitimate son of one of these brothers were killed in the Thirty Years War. 39
It was also recognized that military service abroad could open the door to
other opportunities, as is illustrated by the Innes family of Cotts in Aberdeen-
shire. Alexander Innes of Cotts had several sons: the eldest son John served
in the French guard before he inherited from his father in 1634; the second
son Alexander wrote to his father from London on 12 December 1627, "My
brother Robert is [...] shortly to return to Germanie. I assure you Sir he has
made ane gaynfull voyage. He hes imployed in London [2,000 merks] whitch
I hope within half yeir will be in returne foure, and in Germanie he hes foure
thousand moir. He hes ane angel in the day allowance from the Regiment so
long as he is abrod"; Robert was Alexander's fifth son and was at this time
a captain in the English army after previously being in the French guard. 40
36 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, title page.
37 Brown, Noble Society in Scotland, p. 3.
38 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, Address to the reader.
39 Tayler and Tayler, The House of Forbes, p. 168.
40 Forbes, Ane Account of the Familie of Innes, p. 215.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650 183
The recruitment of soldiers
These sons of nobles and lairds, who saw themselves as professional
soldiers, had a better chance of finding a place in a continental army if,
especially in times of war, they could arrive with their own contingent
of men, already armed or not. There was also the incentive of benefiting
financially from levying men, always a tempting prospect for lairds who
had landed themselves in debt, although this did not always work out well.
In August 1661 Lord Forbes petitioned Charles II for payment he had never
received for levying men for the king of Denmark's service in 1626 as part
of Mackay's Regiment; the failure to pay him on time had resulted in a
serious debt burden. 41 The attractions of military service and cash payments
for recruiting men are obvious for landowners struggling to make ends
meet during years of climatic difficulty, and would have been especially
marked in the case of younger or illegitimate sons with no prospect of an
inheritance. Unfortunately we know very little about most of the named
military captains to whom the Privy Council issued recruitment licences.
Many would have been professional soldiers but it is not clear how many
were already in the service of foreign armies and had returned home to
levy men.
Alongside the professional military men appeared some merchants,
referred to as enterprisers, who offered to provide recruits to any needy
commander. A prominent example of this group was Sir James Spens of
Wormiston, a Fife landowner and merchant adventurer born in 1571. He
was probably already trading in the Baltic area when he and his brother
were approached by Karl IX of Sweden in 1605 to recruit 1,600 foot soldiers
and 600 cavalry for Swedish service against Poland. This service was to be
done with the British monarch's permission, and Spens was to be paid 1,600
daler for every 300 men and appointed as colonel in overall command of
them, presumably ensuring for himself a regular salary. 42 The daler, rex-
dollar, or riksdaler was the Swedish equivalent of the German reichsthaler,
the international European currency of the time. This was the start of a
rewarding career for the Fife merchant: he went on to organize further
troop levies, serve as an ambassador for the British and Swedish monarchs,
and was eventually ennobled as a Swedish baron before his death in 1632.
41 Tayler and Tayler, The House of Forbes, p. 185.
42 Fuller biography available at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/ssne (ID 1642) (accessed
1 February 2011).
184
JAMES MILLER
As an example of a recruiter who failed to fulfil the terms of a recruitment
contract, let me summarize the career of John Gordon of Ardlogie. The
second son of an Aberdeenshire laird, Gordon received funds to levy and
transport men to Germany as part of the larger recruitment under James
Sinclair of Murkle in March 1627. This he failed to do and was outlawed - in
the Scots legal expression, "put to the horn". He evaded arrest and eventu-
ally escaped to Germany where, it appears, he was killed in 1638 in the
contingents commanded by fellow Scot, also called John Gordon. 43
During the reign of Karl IX's son, Gustavus Adolphus, contracts for
recruitment were based on rates laid down by the Swedish government. 44
A letter dated 21 April 1629 contains articles of agreement between Sir James
Spens and a Captain Alexander Hamilton for the recruitment of 1,200 men. 45
Hamilton received the sum of £1,696 "lawfull English money" as equivalent
to 7,680 riksdaler, or 4.5 riksdaler per £1. The captain's expenses in recruiting
included the provision of food and drink for recruits, usually some clothing,
and their transport costs across the North Sea, as well as a hand-out when
a man signed on. In his study of recruitment for Sweden in the 1620s, J.A.
Fallon calculated that it cost 6s 8d to ship a man from Scotland to the Elbe,
and that two weeks' food and drink for a recruit cost 9s 4d. This leaves a
balance of 4s, almost 1 riksdaler, a sum that Fallon suggested would have
been handed to the newly signed-on recruit. 46 This seems very generous and
we must allow the possibility that some of the money might have stayed
in the recruiter's pocket, particularly as a recruiter could face a fine if he
failed to bring in the number of men promised or required.
Other factors and motivations
A factor of some importance in recruitment in the 1550-1650 period was
religion. Solidarity with other members of the same religious denomination
led many to take up arms: this was true of the recruitment to fight in the
1570s in the Low Countries against the Habsburgs; in the effort to restore
Frederick and his queen, Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of James VI, to the
Rhine Palatinate after 1618; and in the perceived defence of the Protestant
cause under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. The fall of Haarlem to the Span-
43 Bulloch, The House of Gordon, p. 49.
44 Fallon, "Scottish Mercenaries in the Service of Denmark and Sweden", p. 43.
45 Quoted in Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, p. 92.
46 Fallon, "Scottish Mercenaries in the Service of Denmark and Sweden", p. 183.
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185
ish in 1573 aroused an unknown but sizeable number of Lowland Scots to
volunteer in the Dutch cause, and the Privy Council noted the issue of a
recruiting licence to Captain Thomas Robesoun to be in the "defence of
Goddis trew religioun". 47
The Scots Brigade in the Low Countries
It can be seen in Table 6.1 that there was a sizeable movement of fighting
men from Scotland mainly to France and Scandinavia in the mid-sixteenth
century This was followed by a significant series of levies for service in the
Low Countries in the 1570s after the Dutch rising to throw off Habsburg
rule. The levies began as the raising of companies under individual captains
but in 1586 these companies were amalgamated into two regiments. The
organization of the Scots in Dutch service thereafter went through a num-
ber of changes but a Scots Brigade, as the units were collectively labelled,
remained a feature of the Dutch army until 1782. As already stated, the units
of the brigade were initially recruited mainly in the Lowlands, and it was
not until the mid-seventeenth century that we find significant recruitment
from the Highlands. In an age when sons were often inclined and indeed
expected to follow the same trade as their fathers, it is no surprise to find
it being said of the Scots Brigade: "Probably no military body ever existed
in which members of the same families were so constantly employed for
generations." 48 The records of the Brigade include note of Dutch authorities
making the journey across the North Sea to seek men, for example in 1594
when ambassadors crossed from Veere to Leith on such an errand, and
again in 1632 when the States General sought to reinforce the existing four
English and three Scottish regiments in Dutch service.
Recruitment for service in the Thirty Years War
The second major phase of recruitment of soldiers for overseas service
came during the Thirty Years War. The early levies were used to reinforce
the army of Count Ernst von Mansfeld, the mercenary commander, in the
campaign in Bohemia in support of James VPs son-in-law, Frederick of
Bohemia, against the Holy Roman Empire. Later levies were also destined to
47 RPCS, II, p. 237.
48 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of the United Netherlands, I, p. xxiv.
186
JAMES MILLER
fight in the effort to restore Frederick to the Upper and Lower Palatinate and
to strengthen the Danish opposition to west-bound Habsburg forces, as well
as to join the forces of Gustavus Adolphus. Large levies were implemented
in the late 1630s and early 1640s for French service in the latter stages of the
Thirty Years War when France entered the war in alliance with the Swedes
and others against the Holy Roman Empire.
Attitudes to military service
The social hierarchies that existed in Scotland made the recruitment of men
easier than it might otherwise have been. In the rural Highlands, the clan
system could be readily adapted to secure men for continental levies. In
1633 the parish minister of Wardlaw near Inverness recorded that Thomas
Fraser, son of a local laird, used his clan connections and the assistance of
Lord Lovat, the clan chief, to raise recruits. 49 In another instance involving
the Frasers, in 1656, clan leaders helped a recruiter enlist forty-three men
in three days. It seems that the use of such social networks was standard
procedure. When Sir Donald Mackay of Strathnaver issued commissions in
his proposed regiment to the leading young men in neighbouring clans, he
undoubtedly expected at least some of them to respond with enthusiasm
and bring men with them to the colours, and this is indeed what happened.
In the Lowlands, the subordinate classes appear not to have shared
the attitude to martial glory found among the nobles and lairds. The poor
socio-economic conditions in the late sixteenth century and the familiarity
with travel to the Low Countries prevalent on the east coast of Scotland may
have helped in the recruitment of men in the Lowlands to join the conflict
in the Netherlands, but later during the seventeenth century there is clear
evidence of passive and even active resistance to recruitment. In April 1620,
for instance, the levy to provide 1,500 men to go with Colonel Andrew Gray
to Bohemia was proceeding slowly, and towards the end of that month the
Privy Council ordered all beggars, vagabonds, and "masterless" men with
no lawful trade or means of livelihood to enlist. Failure to comply with
this command could result in a whipping or being burnt on the cheek for a
first offence, and hanging for a second, at first glance a seemingly counter-
productive threat. 50 The Council also directed criminals to be placed in the
army, and in the Borders a proclamation was read out at market crosses
49 Fraser, Chronicles of the Frasers, pp. 255, 417.
50 RPCS, XII, p. 259.
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to announce that reivers, men convicted of feuding and cattle raiding,
were to be marked down for transportation. Early in May Colonel Gray had
sufficient men to set off for Hamburg, but in the last days before sailing
some of the recruits deserted and went into hiding in the Edinburgh area.
From 1620 onwards it appears to have become common for courts to offer
criminals the opportunity to go abroad in military service and for recruiting
officers to visit jails in the search for men.
A major levy was launched in the spring of 1627 to provide men for the
service of the king of Denmark, then facing the advancing forces of the Holy
Roman Empire in north-western Germany. The three commanders - Robert,
Earl of Nithsdale, Alexander Lord Spynie, and James Sinclair of Murkle
- were each granted £4,000 sterling for the task. The target of 9,000 men
- 3,000 each - was extremely ambitious. Efforts to help recruiters attain
it included another pronouncement from the Privy Council about taking
up vagabonds and idle men, except that this time the Council went into
more detail and mentioned "all Egyptians [gypsies]" and fugitive soldiers
from other levies. 51 The Council also noted reports of the targeted recruits
forming themselves into "societies and companies" and preparing to use
firearms to resist recruitment. The Council warned sheriffs and burgh
magistrates to apprehend all potential recruits from among the idle and
masterless in their jurisdictions and asked them to assist the recruiting
officers "in bringing of these people to their colours". Sea captains were
forbidden to give fugitives passage to Ireland. The levy proceeded during
the summer but it soon brought objections from respectable sections of
the community. Recruiting captains were clearly desperate to fill their
quotas and were resorting to dubious tactics. The Council learned in June
of men going into hiding and deserting, and also of men being violently
taken against their will. 52 In July, leading burgesses in Edinburgh protested
that their sons and grandsons at the college were being induced to enlist
by "alluring speeches", causing some families to withdraw their offspring
from the college and send them to other burghs for safety. 53 There were
complaints from the town of Burntisland in Fife in September that the
soldiers waiting to go abroad were causing "manie great disordours". 54 In
the midst of this troubled time around the Forth, Charles I launched a new
war against France and called for a levy for men for an expedition to relieve
51 Ibid., 2nd series, I, p. 565.
52 Ibid., 2nd series, VIII, p. 379.
53 Ibid., 2nd series, II, p. 7.
54 Ibid., 2nd series, II, p. 79.
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JAMES MILLER
the siege of La Rochelle. The Nithsdale-Spynie-Murkle levy probably raised
only 5,000 men by the time the contingents sailed for Denmark in October.
In 1629, Murkle was still trying to reach his original target of 3,000, had
exhausted the recruitment grant, and had "ingaged his awin estait for the
furtherance thairof". 55 Interestingly, in his petition to the Privy Council
describing his unfortunate predicament, Murkle seems most concerned
over being disgraced in the eyes of the king of Denmark and asks for a
hearing with Charles I in the hope the British king will plead his case in
Copenhagen.
By the late 1620s, therefore, it is evident that recruiters were finding it
difficult to attract sufficient numbers of men to fulfil their obligations in
the Lowlands, hitherto the main part of the country for the recruitment of
soldiers for overseas service. The articles of agreement for recruitment of
men for Sweden between Sir James Spens and Captain Alexander Hamilton
in April 1629 refer to "the scantnes of men in Scotland". 56 During this period,
the Lowlands enjoyed improvements in trade and the economy, better sea-
sons for agriculture, and fewer outbreaks of infectious disease. 57 Prospects at
home must have appeared better than they had in the previous half-century.
It is only at this point that recruitment in the Highlands becomes significant.
Charles I asked for 200 Highland bowmen for his La Rochelle expedition in
1627 but in the previous year Sir Donald Mackay of Strathnaver (ennobled as
Lord Reay in 1628) in the far north of the country had taken it upon himself
to escape some domestic difficulties by obtaining from the king a licence to
raise troops for the continent on a much larger scale. Sir Robert Gordon, a
neighbouring landlord, and possibly a cause of some of Sir Donald's domestic
difficulties, recorded the eventuality as follows:
The yeir 1626 Sir Donald Macky (a gentleman of a sturring spirite)
finding himselff crossed at home, and matters not succeeding accord-
ing to his expectation, either in his owne particular estate or against
his neighbours he taks resolution to leave the kingdome; and to this
end he causeth his freinds to deale at court with the king for a licence
to transport men to the Count Mansfeild into Germanie. 58
55 Ibid., 2nd series, III, p. 147.
56 Quoted in Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, p. 92.
57 Smout, A History of the Scottish People, pp. 99-103.
58 Gordon, A Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland, p. 401.
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Count Mansfeld's army was defeated before Mackay's contingents reached it
but Mackay's Regiment, as it became called, entered the service of Denmark.
After the Peace of Liibeck in July 1629, its officers offered their allegiance to
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and took their men with them. In contrast
with the struggle faced by Nithsdale and his colleagues to fill the ranks,
the levy in the northern Highlands proceeded relatively quickly. Mackay
received his licence in March 1626 and by October at least 2,000 men were
ready to embark for the Elbe estuary. 59 There were two possible reasons
for this: this part of the country had not been really affected by previous
recruitments, and it was a reflection of the ease with which clan society
could be mobilized. Mackay was ably assisted in recruitment by the Forbes
family in Aberdeenshire, where a proportion of the recruits were raised. 60
Despite the relative speediness of the levy, Mackay's recruitment drive
suffered, probably like all levies, from desertion, from men enrolling,
receiving the initial payment, and then going into hiding. According to
the Privy Council, "a grite number of thame" did this, and severe punish-
ment was proclaimed for them and any who helped them evade justice. 61
In the long run, even the clan system came under stress and did not always
produce recruits: in September 1636 Captain Robert Innes, a laird's son
from Mackay's Regiment, was angered enough to strike tenants of Gordon
of Dunkinty near Elgin when they refused to allow their sons or servants
to be recruited. Efforts to find new recruits by Mackay himself in 1629 also
had some trouble in finding men, partly a reflection of the low population
density of the northern Highlands. Possibly to avoid stirring up public unrest
over continual recruitment, when the Privy Council granted a licence to
raise 300 men as replacements for regiments already in Swedish service, it
added the instruction that this was to be done quietly, without drums or
display of colours. 62
In July and August 1632, the Dutch States General sought to recruit 2,000
men in England and 1,500 men in Scotland to reinforce existing regiments. 63
Charles I gave his permission readily enough to the Dutch ambassador
and his colleagues but warned them that the conditions on offer - each
recruiting officer to receive 8 guilders per man and the command of a
company - would attract no one. Various reasons were put forward - that it
59 RPCS, 2nd series, I, pp. 244-245.
60 Tayler and Tayler, House of Forbes, p. 177.
61 RPCS, 2nd series, I, p. 311.
62 Ibid., 2nd series, II, p. 397.
63 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of Denmark andSweden, I, p. 411.
190
JAMES MILLER
was the wrong time of year, as high wages were on offer during the harvest;
that recruiting was going ahead daily for Sweden and Muscovy the latter
offering 15 guilders per short month to the soldiers; that the targets per
recruiting officer were too high; that officers would not like to recruit men
and then not be put in command over them; that money was still owing to
the Earl of Morton for a previous levy in 1629. These excuses were advanced
in England; the ambassador failed to contact anyone in Scotland to find
out if there was a better chance of success there. The levy failed. In 1633 the
English government prohibited taking men out of the country for foreign
service unless they were recruits to keep existing regiments up to strength.
The large levy in 1642 for service in France also ran into difficulties,
producing in the Privy Council records of the by-now familiar resorts to
impressing "idle persons" and handing over convicted criminals to the
recruiters. The Council records also show, however, that the authorities
were not undiscriminating: for example, when eleven men complained
that they had been taken by force and thrown into prison "where they are
yitt lying almost starving for want of maintenance and their wyves and
children ar begging through the countrie", the Council sent officials to
investigate with the result that five were set free and six were retained,
the latter having been deemed to have freely volunteered. 64 There are also
instances of landowners seeking the release of members of their workforce
who had either volunteered or been inveigled into enlisting, an interesting
point to which I shall return below.
Conditions of service
No written agreements or contracts covering the recruitment of the rank-
and-file soldiers have been located during the research for this chapter, and
it is possible they were rarely if at all used. Verbal agreements founded on
the existing conditions of trust and hierarchy could be expected in clan
societies with their strong oral cultures, but they were also probably the
norm in other parts of the country. The correspondence and contracts that
do survive relate to official sources and educated elites.
The soldier serving abroad could usually hope for regular pay and the
provision of food and clothing. These conditions appear to have been ac-
cepted at the time as reasonably fair, although it is difficult to compare
wages and prices in the various currencies of the day. Complaints and
64 RPCS, 2nd series, VII, p. 450.
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dissension, amounting at times to mutiny, seem to have occurred only when
pay and provisions were not issued when expected. In the late sixteenth
century in Scotland, in one year a male farm servant could expect to earn
from £1 6s 8d to £6, depending on skill and experience as well as regional
variations. Rural wages were often supplemented with accommodation and
some food but they seem very low when compared to what soldiers could
hope for. The pay scale set by the Privy Council in 1586 for armed men to
police the Borders ran from £20 a month for a horseman and £6 for a foot
soldier to almost £70 and £50 respectively for their commanding captains. 65
As an example of pay given to Scottish soldiers in Dutch service in the
1570s, we have in the records totals paid out to commanding officers for the
fourteen months between ljune 1573 and 31 July 1574. The largest sum went
to Captain Baulfour (Balfour) - £8,015, the smallest to Colonel Ormeston
- £50, with widely varying amounts to other officers, which presumably
reflect the respective lengths of service and complements of men, as well
as the costs of bringing recruits over the North Sea. 66 At the same time,
under "pay", Colonel Ormeston received £500, and this seems to have been
the going annual rate for a man of this rank. In October 1575, the salary of
Henry Balfour, by this time a colonel, was set at 800 guilders per year by
the Dutch authorities. In May 1577, Colonel Balfour received £6,000 Artois
for his services, as a lump sum at the termination of his period of service;
he was soon requested to return to the Low Countries when war broke out
anew in October that year.
In 1577 the Dutch laid down that "All captains [are] to pay their men 45
stivers each, half monthly, while the engagement remains at 1,100 guilders
monthly for 100 men." 67 A village worker's salary in the Low Countries at
the time was around 200 guilders per year. 68 In 1579, the pay scale for a
company of soldiers under the command of a Colonel William Stewart ran
from 12 livres per month for the drummer, the lowest paid, through 16 for a
corporal, 24 for a sergeant, 40 for an ensign, and 45 for a lieutenant, to 90 for
the captain. 69 In September 1586 the authorities in Amsterdam were asked
to pay to 150 Scottish soldiers who had newly arrived in the area 1 florin
(1 guilder) per day to the captain, 10 patars (14 pence) to the lieutenant, 6
patars each to the ensigns, sergeants, cadets, corporals, and clerk, and 3
65 Ibid., IV, p. 111.
66 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of Denmark and Sweden, I, p. 36.
67 Ibid.
68 Israel, The Dutch Republic, p. 353.
69 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of Denmark and Sweden, I, p. 20.
192
JAMES MILLER
patars to the ordinary ranks. 70 The request to Henry Balfour to return to
fight for the States General in the renewal of hostilities in October 1577
included the remuneration (apparently per year) offered to him and his
men: £500 for himself, £200 for his lieutenant, £100 for his sergeant major,
£40 for the quartermaster and the provost, £16 for the halbardiers, and £12
for the provost sergeants. 71
An attractive feature of service in the Low Countries in the Dutch cause
was that the widows and children of officers killed in action were given
state pensions, amounts varying from 800 guilders per year awarded to the
widow and son of Colonel Balfour in April 1581, to sums in 1610 of the order
of £50 to £100 for each surviving relative. 72
Costs forced the States General government of the United Provinces in
the Low Countries to review the pay scales in 1587, when they dismissed
companies they could not afford, asked officers against assurance of a
final settlement in the future not to seek payment for arrears as long as
the war continued, required soldiers to swear to accept a 48-day month
(officers were given a 32-day month), and assigned garrisons to different
provinces according to the province's ability to pay 73 The commission dated
26 June 1588 to Colonel Bartholomew Balfour included the statement that
his company of 200 men would receive "2,200 pounds, of 40 groats the
pound, every 32 days, with the reservation that henceforward he shall
content himself with these payments every 48 days. With this he and his
subordinate officers and his soldiers, like others in the country's service,
must content themselves." 74 A similar commission, dated 15 April 1593, to
Captain Patrick Bruce commanding a company of lancers of 100 horses
provides higher remuneration for mounted men - "his payment to be 3,000
pounds per month of 32 days, the officers' salaries and horse fodder included
therein, provided he shall take care to procure [...] all such payments out of
said levies on the country districts of Flanders, the which he is to exact with
all diligence and put in train, so that his pay beyond the present incomes
can be escheat (or claimed) out of them; and he, the captain, his subordinate
officers, and cavalry shall like others rest satisfied with receiving a month's
pay every 48 days." 75
70 Ibid., I, p. 77.
71 RPCS, II, p. 641.
72 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of Denmark and Sweden, I, p. 226.
73 Grimeston, A Generall Historie of the Netherlands, p. 890.
74 Ferguson, The Scots Brigade in the Service of Denmark and Sweden, I, p. 85.
75 Ibid., I, p. 92.
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The imposition of 32-day and 48-day months was not popular with the
Scottish officers. In June 1588, three captains, named as Meurrey, Nysbeth,
and Waddel, told a committee of the States General that they were willing to
serve "but that they must have the means to make their soldiers willing and
to satisfy them". 76 There ensued a round of negotiations that lasted several
weeks, in which Colonel Balfour tried to win the best deal for his men but
which ended with the discharge of some officers and the continuation of
the 48-day month.
The pay scale for men to be recruited for Swedish service by Sir Donald
Mackay is set out in a letter of June 1629: 77 colonel - 300 riksdaler Swedish
per month of 31 days; company captain - 100; lieutenant and ensign - 50;
sergeant - 16; drummer or piper - 8; ordinary pikeman or musketeer - 6;
scout and reserve - 5. The letter also sets out what would be expected of
the mercenary:
[Officers and men] participating in our adventures, shall not turn
away from us in times of misfortunes, and as becometh such honour-
able and brave cavaliers and soldiers, they shall always be ready
cheerfully and indefatigably to venture body and life.
There follows a list of the types of action in which the mercenary may
expect to find himself- battles, skirmishes, watches, attacks, sieges, by day
or night, on water or on land. The Swedish king undertook to provide a suf-
ficient monthly allowance with a twice-yearly settlement of accounts. Pay
would not be reduced but there would be deductions for careless damage
or breakage. The rate of exchange at the time is revealed in the articles of
an agreement drawn up between Sir James Spens and Alexander Hamilton
in April 1629 for the raising of 1,200 men, as mentioned earlier. The rewards
for senior officers could be very high and come in the form of grants of land
and hereditary titles among the nobility as well as in payments of money,
although only a few men benefited in this way.
For most soldiers the regularity with which they received their pay,
food, and clothing was a major factor in keeping up their morale, and the
reputations of commanders often rested on their performance in this regard.
On long campaigns across great distances, the systems of victualling and
payment could easily break down, and even Gustavus Adolphus, generally
a reliable payer, had to deal with threats of mutiny from time to time. Some
76 Ibid., I, p.98.
77 Fischer, The Scots in Germany, p. 280.
194
JAMES MILLER
mercenary commanders made no special arrangements for the support of
their men and expected them to forage and plunder, practices that naturally
visited misery on civilians and brought the reputation of the soldier to the
level of the thief or rapist.
By the standards of the time, the Dutch were good at maintaining regular
payment of salaries, although, as we have seen, there were still occasions
when the soldiers were stirred to complain. The conscientious paymaster
was always aware that the loyalty of a mercenary could be severely tested
by a breakdown in pay, an eventuality that could easily occur when an
army was in the field. The provision of clothing appears to have been very
important for the attraction of recruits and the morale of the newly formed
contingents. In 1627 Lord Ogilvie noted that his recruits would not "imbark
with good will except they get thair clothes" and realized how important
this was: "it does mutch good, and incurages many, quhen they sie the
soldieris weill used, and speciall quhen they sie them passe throch the
cuntrey weill apperelled". 78 Robert Monro records that the men in Mackay's
Regiment were issued with clothing and muster money after they had ar-
rived in Holstein from Scotland to join the king of Denmark's forces, and
briefly described how the officers refused to wear the Danish cross with
their Scottish colours, a short-lived instance of ethnic loyalty that was
dispelled when Kingjames VI's officials told them to obey who was paying
them "in a matter so indifferent". 79 After six months of training and what
Monro describes as getting in good order, the regiment was inspected by the
king, took an oath of fidelity and heard the articles of war read, completing
a comparatively well-organized and measured initiation that may have
been far from typical of the mercenary experience.
Mention of duration of service seems to be missing from what we know
of the contractual arrangements for the rank and file. It seems to have been
customary for a soldier to serve as long as he was fit and the continuation
of hostilities required his presence, his time ending when successful peace
negotiations brought about disbandment.
Conditions of service related mainly to the active soldier. As mentioned,
the States General in the Low Countries provided pensions for the widows
and offspring of officers but this was not true of every employer. The
conditions offered by Gustavus Adolphus to Sir Donald Mackay included
provision for the care of wounded and disabled men: "we shall provide a
temporary home for them in our own dominions, but should they prefer
78 Fallon, "Scottish Mercenaries", p. 159.
79 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, p. 2.
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195
going beyond our kingdom a month's pay shall be given to each". 80 Evidence
is very hard to obtain as to what really happened to the ordinary soldier in
the ranks when he became too old to continue or had to retire from active
duty through injury. A few seem to have found a role behind the lines as
cooks or orderlies; many may have been forced to resort to begging or a
scrape-by existence in some menial occupation. We know from anecdotal
evidence - the mention of veterans in later contexts - that some of the Scots
found their way home from mainland Europe, likely taking advantage of the
Swedish offer of a month's pay but no figures on this are readily available.
On his return to Britain in 1633, Robert Monro launched a venture to provide
a hospital for wounded veterans. 81
The response of the enlisted man to the conditions of service seems to
have been generally one of acceptance, unsurprising in view of the options
open to them once they had enlisted. The soldiers keenly perceived unfair-
ness in treatment. Sir Donald Mackay sought more money from the Danish
authorities for his men when they protested that English units in the same
army were being paid in a different manner. As Robert Monro put it - "It is
a hard matter when the diligent and industrious Souldier is disappointed of
his hire, and that he is rewarded with injury who did merit better." 82 Diligent
officers in the field during the Thirty Years War were often exercised in
maintaining the payment and hence the morale of their units.
At the last resort, the aggrieved soldier could always withdraw his
service. A simple refusal to obey orders and mutiny, although this was an
ultimately disastrous step, was made easier in the period under study by
the accepted custom that defeated troops could switch sides and join the
army of the victor. With the mercenary, loyalty was usually to comrade
and commander rather than to country. Of his service with the Swedish
army in northern Germany in the 1630s, James Turner commented in his
memoirs: "I had swallowed without chewing, in Germanie, a very dangerous
maxime, which militarie men there too much follow; which was, that so
we serve our master honestlie, it is no matter what master we serve." 83 In
the 1570S-1580S in the Low Countries, when sieges of towns were common,
a besieged garrison whose pay had fallen into arrears was often open to
negotiation and surrender.
80 Fischer, The Scots in Germany, p. 281.
81 RPCS, 2nd series, V, p. 353.
82 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, p. 196.
83 Turner, Memoirs of His Own Life and Times, p. 14.
196
JAMES MILLER
Back home
One of the most difficult aspects of this subject to explore is the effects mer-
cenary service had on the society from which the soldiers came. Although
the removal of a significant number of active men from the population
must have had some consequences, there seems to be a complete lack of
evidence for a shortage of manpower in normal homeland socio-economic
life. In times of dearth such a shortage may have been a blessing but this
would have been a short-term benefit. The loss of manpower may well have
been one reason for increasing resistance to recruitment and may have
contributed, for example, to the Aberdeenshire laird's tenants resisting the
efforts of Robert Innes of Cotts to recruit their sons and servants.
In 1635, the Privy Council became so concerned over the amount of
foreign "dollars [sic]" in circulation in the country, leading to fraud and a
devaluation of the currency, that they passed in August an act allowing
traders to use only domestic money for transactions and followed this in
February 1636 with an act prohibiting the importation of amounts greater
than 56s. 84 The continental currency could well have been brought by
returning veterans.
By 1650 there must have accumulated in Scotland a pool of men with
military experience, men who had served abroad and found their way home
again. At least, this seems to be implied by the petition in November 1641
by Alexander Lord Forbes to the London Parliament stating "there are
many soldiers desirous of employment [...] Your Petitioner having formerly
engaged in foreign wars desires that he may have leave to entreat such of
the officers and soldiers as shall not be any longer employed here and will
willingly put themselves under his command in the service of any foreign
prince." 85
Events within Britain were soon to provide plenty of opportunity for the
man with military training. Growing political tension in Scotland led to
the military confrontation of the First Bishops' War in June 1639. This was
followed by further hostilities in 1640 and a gradual worsening of affairs
until full-scale civil war broke out in England in 1642. Many of the Scottish
mercenaries found their way home from the continent to fight, where their
experience served them well. After the mid-century, although individual
soldiers and officers still found places in continental armies, the raising
of troops on any scale for the service of foreign powers became a memory.
84 RPCS, 2nd series, VI, p. xvii.
85 Tayler and Tayler, House of Forbes, p. 195.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
197
Military service in transition
In the first part of this chapter, I put forward a number of factors as deter-
mining the movement of mercenary soldiers from Scotland to continental
Europe between 1550 and 1650. These factors are: a tradition of emigration
in general, and previous experience of armed service in continental Europe,
especially in France; socio-economic hardship at home; domestic military
custom; the attitudes of the leading members of society to a military life;
and new opportunities for armed service in continental Europe after the
Reformation. This expansion of military service abroad as a feature of
Scottish society can be seen in labour terms as the response to a growth
in demand for a particular skill in a population where other opportunities
for making a living were constrained in several ways.
Men with basic fighting skills and experience in handling weapons could
be found throughout the country. In the Borders and the Highlands, cattle
reiving and clan feuds provided experience in campaigning over rough
country, but even in the more settled Lowland areas the nobles maintained
bands of armed men in their own service; among the mass of peasants and
townsmen the wappenschaw system ensured that experience in handling
weapons was normal. The custom of raising a host or army whenever an
armed force was needed for national defence or security also kept alive the
practices of military service.
Economic hardship at home, experience with weapons and armed ser-
vice, and existing emigration pathways to the continent were three strong
"push" factors in encouraging men to look abroad. This was combined with
a strong "pull" factor, the attitude of the nobility and the landowning classes
to military service and their enthusiasm for "seeking fortune in the field".
Recruitment for overseas service was also encouraged from time to time by
government for several reasons: as a way of coping with food shortages, as a
way to get rid of social undesirables, and as an instrument of foreign policy.
When mercenary activity by Scots may have had a negative effect on foreign
relations, the government took steps to curtail or prevent it, for example,
by issuing recruiting licences or, in the case of the Ramsay recruitment in
1612, by seeking to suppress it completely.
It is also useful to see the phenomenon in terms of the work options that
were open to a young man at the time. There was a high degree of hereditary
employment, with the son of the merchant, tradesman, or labourer generally
following in his father's footsteps to earn a livelihood. This did not militate
against some upward mobility but the absence of widespread, accessible
education meant that only a few young people were given the opportunity
198
JAMES MILLER
to attend any classes and benefit from formal tuition outside the family.
Talented youngsters were probably spotted and encouraged, especially after
the Reformation when a great need for new clergy arose, but this route of
advancement lay open only to a relative few. Among the landowning classes,
only the eldest son could hope to inherit an estate. Military service of some
kind became, therefore, a real career option for many young men, especially
when, as Major commented, a positive attitude to military service existed
among farmers who scorned trades. To an extent, rural men shared the
outlook of their social superiors and may have enlisted willingly, an attitude
most likely to be prevalent in clan society and to have been an important
factor in the comparatively rapid recruitment of Mackay's Regiment in 1626.
It is possible that some labourers, urban as well as rural, saw enlisting
as a soldier as a means of escape from the restricted life on offer at home
and surrendered to the lure of adventure in preference to tedium and
familiarity. For those who were fugitives from justice, answering the call
of the recruiting officer was an obvious way to evade arrest and a grim
fate, and was probably a gamble worth taking, but even for men who had
committed no wrong the prospect of soldiering may have been seen as an
opportunity. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that came
into existence with the Reformation after 1560 spoke against the oppression
of poor tenants, although it failed to do much to ease their plight. 86 In the
burghs only merchants and craftsmen enjoyed the privileges that came
with burgess status; all the other inhabitants, the majority that included
servants, journeymen, labourers, and the poor, were called "unfree" and
had no say in local affairs. As the seventeenth century wore on, conditions
almost akin to serfdom were imposed on the labour force in the small coal-
mining and salt-panning industries around the Firth of Forth. 87 Exchanging
the constraints of civilian life in such circumstances for the discipline of
an army, which at least offered the prospect of regular food, shelter, and
comradeship, may have been a relatively easy decision to make. When some
masters complained that their servants had been seized by recruiters and
sought to have them released, the servants may not always have been so
keen to return to civilian servitude. It seems that enlisting did not neces-
sarily take the soldier away from some kind of family life, as in July 1581 the
Privy Council complained that the women following the troops abroad were
86 Smout, A History of the Scottish People, p. 85.
87 Ibid., p. 168.
THE SCOTTISH MERCENARY AS A MIGRANT LABOURER IN EUROPE, 1550-1650
199
bringing dishonour on the country and called on ship captains to allow only
legitimate wives of good repute to embark with the soldiers. 88
Determining where the Scottish mercenary contingents fall on the
axis of free/ unfree labour must take account of the clear distinctions
between officers and men in the conditions of service. Officers were seen
as professionals and were free to resign a commission, the most famous
and exceptional example of this being the resignation of Sir John Hepburn
from the Swedish army in 1632 after a perceived insult and a quarrel with
Gustavus Adolphus. 89 Sir John was, of course, a senior commander; a more
junior officer may not have felt so free to take such an independent course.
The rank and file were unfree in the sense that they were expected to stay
in service once enlisted, and were subject to laws on desertion.
With regard to the classification of labour relations used by the IISH, the
Scottish mercenary soldier appears to accord with more than one category,
depending on his individual status. The conscripted and pressed men in the
contingents recruited in the Lowlands fit the definition of forced tributary
labour. As well as receiving pay, they were paid partly in kind with food and
clothing. With recruits who volunteered, the definition of labour relations
becomes a little more complicated. In effect they were exchanging one form
of labour relationship for another. For those who belonged to the "unfree"
section of society, willingly leaving self-employment as a tradesman or
employment as a labourer to become a soldier was surrendering a degree
of personal independence for indentured tributary labour, but in times of
economic hardship the gains could well have been seen as outweighing
the drawbacks. Some volunteers from the burgess or landowner classes
exchanged a non-working status for soldiering. An example here is James
Turner who, in his own memoir, describes how as a student, aged eighteen,
studying history and religious philosophy, he responded to "a restless desire
[...] to be, if not an actor, at least a spectator of these warrs which at that
time made so much noyse", and enlisted in Sir James Lumsden's regiment
bound for Rostock in 1632. 90 Robert Monro, the laird of Foulis in Easter Ross,
volunteered to join Mackay's Regiment to escape from domestic difficulties:
deep in debt, he engaged his estate revenues to his creditors for ten years
and went off to be a military officer. 91
88 RPCS, III, p. 399.
89 Grant, Memoirs and Adventures of Sir John Hepburn, p. 182.
90 Turner, Memoirs of His Own Life and Times, p. 3.
91 Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, p. 3.
200
JAMES MILLER
The professional soldier, and in the context of this study, this usually
means someone of officer rank, was much more a self-employed individual
free to accept a commission and, as circumstances permitted, move from one
employer to another. With their enlistment in the military ranks, mercenar-
ies from the Highlands, where clan society prevailed, and from among the
Borders kindreds can be seen as moving from a status of reciprocal labour,
whether household- or community-based, or tributary labour to indentured
employment. In the case of Mackay's Regiment, one can argue that Sir Don-
ald Mackay saw the possibility of exploiting clan ties to find an honourable
way out of personal constraints at home, taking it on himself to "offer" men,
for whom he was their natural leader, to the service of others. In doing so,
he was pioneering the exploitation of the clan system that the British state
deployed from the latter half of the eighteenth century to furnish its army
with men. The Scottish host, as raised by the government for a national cause,
and expected to serve without pay for a fixed number of days, was a form of
tributary serf labour, a development from the feudal hosts of past centuries.
Scottish mercenaries, therefore, came from a variety of backgrounds
to reach the status of paid soldier, transitions driven in the period under
study, as we have seen, by a growth in overseas demand for soldiers against
a background of socio-economic hardship at home, with ideological fac-
tors, principally motivations arising from the post-Reformation hostility
between Protestant and Catholic, playing a subsidiary part. The period
saw the transformation of the men who in an earlier generation would
have comprised the post-feudal forces of the Scottish host and the armed
followers of regional and clan leaders into the elements of an aggregate
contract army. Some of those who survived the fighting in Europe and
returned to Scotland then became members of armies commissioned by
the contesting forces in the civil wars in the British Isles, armies which were
soon to be transformed once again into the forces of the state and the early
modern conscript army. In this context, it is significant that a connecting
thread can be traced from Sir John Hepburn's recruitment for France in 1633
and the British line regiment, the Royal Regiment of Foot, more popularly
known as the Royal Scots, that was designated in 1684.
Change and continuity in mercenary
armies: Central Europe, 1650-1750
Michael Sikora
The second half of the seventeenth century saw significant changes in the
structures of the most important military organizations on the European
continent. Collectively, these changes are commonly labelled as the intro-
duction of standing armies. These changes certainly had a deep impact on
the terms as well as the conditions of military labour. However, it needs to be
discussed whether these developments should be understood as a categori-
cal transformation, putting military labour in a typological framework of
its own, or whether it would be more appropriate to stress the aspects of
continuity and to embed these aspects of change in a more evolutionary
interpretative framework. This chapter will argue that several changes of
particular importance altered the face of military labour so that it hardly
could be equated with the classical era of mercenaries in the sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries. Nevertheless, the components were still
tied to various traditions and did not constitute a completely innovative
system that could be compared with the later transformations initiated by
the French Revolution - though even the revolutionaries, of course, could
not avoid being based on existing forms of military institutions.
In accordance with the objectives of the Fighting for a Living project,
this chapter will initially outline the current state of research. Particular
attention will be given to the modes of recruitment, which not only can be
considered crucial criteria for categorizing the type of military labour but
which also developed significant variations during the era under discussion
here. The second part of the chapter will discuss and reassess the empirical
findings in the framework of some more general categories related to the
typology and dynamics of military labour.
The most obvious expression of these changes was not inevitably con-
nected with the principles of standing armies and consisted simply of
significant growth in the size of many armies. At the forefront of these
developments was the French army, which established new levels for the
military strength of a leading power within the European concert. Some
figures will illustrate the extent of growth. Of course, it is impossible to
determine exact numbers; due to the lack of sources as well as discrepan-
cies between normative prescriptions, a limited range of records, and the
202
MICHAEL SIKORA
presumed reality, the numbers are the result of more or less rough estimates
and ongoing discussions. Therefore they cannot offer more than an impres-
sion of the quantitative aspect of armies.
During the Thirty Years War, France may have mobilized at the most
around 125,000 troops, desperately exploiting all resources. Several decades
later, around 1695, the strength of the French army may have peaked at
close to 340,000 troops. 1 A comparison of peacetime statistics is no less
informative. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the French king
was already keeping a few thousand men under arms. However, around
1680 - admittedly only in a short peacetime interlude in France's struggle
for hegemony - the army probably consisted of around 150,000 soldiers,
significantly more than during the Thirty Years War only four decades
before.
These numbers certainly give some impression of the strength of the
most powerful army during this period. However, during the eighteenth
century, one may say that obtaining or retaining the status of a leading
power required the maintenance of more than 100,000 soldiers in peacetime
and the mobilization of at least 150,000 soldiers during war. Such were the
levels of mobilization attained by the rulers of Austria 2 and Prussia 3 during
the Silesian Wars in the middle of the eighteenth century, representing
a significant augmentation of their strength compared to the first half
of the seventeenth century. Though the figures still oscillated within a
certain range and tended to grow, these benchmarks were not exceeded
significantly until the levee en masse of the French Revolution marked
another quantum increase in levels of mobilization.
To get an idea of the overall level of military mobilization in central Eu-
rope, one would have to include the forces of several medium-sized powers,
including the Netherlands 4 and some Italian states, as well as some princely
1 Lynn, Giant of the Grand Steele, pp. 41-58, includes some critical reflections on the relation-
ship between the numbers derived from several archived lists and the real strength of the
armies in the field. The precision of the methodology employed should cause some concern
about comparing these numbers with other, less carefully derived figures.
2 See Hochedlinger, Austria's Wars of Emergence 7683-rygy, pp. 98-104, 234-237, 297-303.
3 Probably the most reliable data can be found injany, Geschichte der Koniglich Preufiischen
Armee bis zum fahr 7807, I, pp. 8, 76, 83ff, 195-196, 387, III, pp. 12-13, i6off., 186 ff, 37off, 435ff.
4 Van Nimwegen, The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions; for a very basic overview,
including some overall figures, see van Nimwegen, "The Transformation of Army Organisation
in Early-Modern Western Europe", pp. 172-178.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750
203
territories within the Holy Roman Empire, 5 such as Bavaria, Hesse-Cassel, 6
or Saxony. 7 However, the relationship between the strength of the army and
the total population (the so-called military participation ratio) also varied
markedly. France benefited from the extent of its territories and the size
of its population, which resulted, according to estimations of the time, in a
ratio of the army's strength in relation to the whole population of around 1
to 140. In contrast, Prussian military strength was based on a territory not
half as big as France with an even smaller population density, so that the
ratio was around 1 to 32. In the second half of the eighteenth century even
this was exceeded by the military of Hesse-Cassel, reaching a ratio of 1
soldier to 15 civilians. 8 Of course, these figures are hard to verify 9 and raise
some difficulties of interpretation, which cannot be fully investigated here.
Observations: recruitment
As a result of these developments the demand for recruits increased dra-
matically. Indeed, the growth in absolute numbers was exacerbated by the
continuous need for replacements in order to maintain the permanent exist-
ence of the armies. To be sure, the need for fresh recruits was unceasing, but
reached significant peaks when rulers decided to start a military build-up,
when new troops were raised in anticipation of a military confrontation
or, even worse, when during war the losses had to be replaced as quickly
5 Numbers can be found in Wilson, German Armies; mostly, however, they do not relate to
general strengths but to wartime strength of territorial contingents deployed as auxiliaries or
parts of the composite Reichsarmee. It is noteworthy that even some of the rather autonomous
imperial cities maintained their own military, which will not be included here, due to their
small numbers and special circumstances; see Schwark, Lubecks Stadtmititdr im 77. unci 78.
Jahrhundert; Kraus, Das Militdrwesen der Reichsstadt Augsburg; Ehlers, Die Wehrverfassung
der Stadt Hamburg im 77. und 7 8. Jahrhundert.
6 Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State; see Taylor, Indentured to Liberty; for a recent overview,
though focused on early seventeenth-century militia, but with far-reaching considerations, see
Graf "Landesdefension oder'Fundamentalmilitarisierung'?"
7 Kroll, Soldaten im 78. Jahrhundert zwischen Friedensalltag und Kriegserfahrung; for a
compilation of several older figures on the Saxon army, see pp. 70-73.
8 Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State, pp. 132-135.
9 The numbers are based on a list from the end of the eighteenth century, which can be found
injohann Georg Kriinitz, Oeconomische Encyclopaedic, L (Berlin, 1790) (http://www.kruenitzi.
uni-trier.de/), pp. 746-755; the list, as part of the entry "Kriegs-Heer", covers all of Europe,
including a large number of territories of the Holy Roman Empire, and relates numbers of army
strength to the population.
204
MICHAEL SIKORA
as possible. Therefore the business of recruitment met challenges of a new
dimension, too. In fact, methods of recruitment changed significantly.
The most important mode of recruitment remained voluntary enlist-
ment. This had been a well-established practice since mercenary service
had become dominant in the later Middle Ages and had marginalized the
feudal military service of the nobility. 10 A significant aspect of this prac-
tice had been the fact that it did not really matter where the mercenaries
came from. At one time, in the first half of the sixteenth century, the most
reputable soldiers originated in Switzerland 11 or, in the case of the so-called
Landsknechte, from the south-western region of the Holy Roman Empire. 12
Other mercenaries, such as the Irish 13 and the Scots, 14 came from peripheral
regions of Europe, while still other elements of the armies, even in the
sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, were also recruited either in the
ruler's territories or simply around the theatre of war. Such a composition
gave parts of the armies a significant multi-cultural appearance.
On the other hand, the growth of the armies and, probably even more
importantly, their enduring institutionalization in peacetime implied a
stronger focus on the state's own population. While precise comparisons
are difficult to determine and have to take account of differing local
circumstances, the importance of foreign recruits seemingly decreased
in armies such as the French 15 or the Austrian, 16 where they dropped as a
proportion of the total to below 20 per cent. Recruiting beyond the state's
borders, however, continued to be a common practice. In this respect,
France maintained a special relationship with the Swiss cantons by extend-
ing traditional treaties that provided fixed numbers of Swiss recruits for
10 Mallett, Mercenaries and Their Masters; Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His
Work Force.
11 However, exclusive contracts mostly tied Swiss recruitment to French service; see as an
overview Bodin, Les Suisses au service de la France. Swiss research on mercenary services is
mostly focused on its social impact in Switzerland itself; see several contributions in Fuhrer et
at, Schweizer in "Fremden Diesnten", though it mostly refers to older works, and Gente ferocis-
sima; Kiing, Glanz und Elend der Sbldner; Biihrer, Der Ziircher Solddienst des 78. Jahrhunderts;
Schaufelberger, "Von der Kriegsgeschichte zur Militargeschichte"; Schaufelberger, Der alte
Schweizer und sein Krieg. Many authors also still refer to Peyer, "Die wirtschaftliche Bedeutung
der fremden Dienste fur die Schweiz".
12 Baumann, Landsknechte.
13 Stradling, The Spanish Monarchy and Irish Mercenaries; Murtagh, "Irish Soldiers Abroad,
1600-1800"; O'Reilly, "The Irish Mercenary Tradition in the 1600s".
14 Miller, Swords for Hire; several contributions inMurdoch, Scotland and the Thirty Years War.
15 Corvisier, L'armeefrangaise de la fin du XVIIe siecle au ministere de Choiseul, I, pp. 55, i57f;
Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle, pp. 33if.
16 Duffy, The Army of Maria Theresa, p. 47.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 205
the French army, hired by the local authorities in Switzerland themselves.
The Swiss were organized in separate units, which were retained during the
entire eighteenth century, and they remained loyal until the last ones were
massacred defending the French king against the Parisian revolutionaries
in front of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792.
Even the individual enlistment of foreigners remained possible in the
French army. The Austrian army profited from some scattered Habsburg
possessions in southern Germany where recruiters had easy access to minor
territories in the region. 17 Along with Switzerland, the highly fragmented
political landscape in southern Germany had provided one of Europe's most
important soldier-markets since the heyday of the Landsknechte. This was
even more important for Prussia when it entered the league of Europe's lead-
ing powers in the first half of the eighteenth century. Due to its relatively
small population, the Prussian military build-up depended to a considerable
extent on foreign recruitment. 18 The proportion of recruits from beyond the
borders of Prussia may have accounted for around one-third of the army,
and Frederick the Great even tried to increase their numbers. 19 Although the
standing armies tended to become more homogeneous than before - further
evidence for this will be discussed below - and since different armies had
to deal with different conditions, recruitment continued to disregard the
origins of the recruits. The concern with the quantity of recruits overrode
any other considerations.
This was all the more true since growing armies altered the conditions
of recruitment in another important regard. As far as we know, recruit-
ment did not meet serious problems during the heyday of mercenaries in
the sixteenth century. 20 Things changed during the seventeenth century,
starting with the Thirty Years War, and these were later enforced by the
17 A very close-up and colourful view of the everyday business of foreign recruitment in a
southern German imperial city is offered by Schiissler, "Das Werbewesen in der Reichsstadt
Heilbronn"; unfortunately only very few carbon copies of this work exist. The subject is cov-
ered fundamentally by Wilson, "The Politics of Military Recruitment in Eighteenth-Century
Germany". See also, from a more juridical perspective, von Rosenberg, Soldatenwerbung unci
militdrisches Durchzugsrecht im Zeitalter des Absotutismusdor concrete examples, see pp. i04ff,
i34ff; Heuel, Werbungen in der Reichsstadt Koln 7700-7750.
18 Gugger, Preujiische Werbungen in der Eidgenossenschaft im 78. Jahrhundert; Sicken, "Die
preuKische Werbung in Franken"; Jany, Geschichte der Koniglich Preufiischen Armee bis zum
Jahr 7807; von Schultz, Die preufiischen Werbungen unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. undFriedrich dem
Grofien.
19 Jany, Geschichte der Koniglich Preufiischen Armee bis zum Jahr 7807, II, pp. 236ff, III, pp. 50,
i84ff., 435f-
20 Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. und77. Jahrhunderts, pp. 97f.
206
MICHAEL SIKORA
changes outlined above. Obviously, it became more and more difficult
to motivate enough volunteers to join the army; at least, historians have
revealed an increasing number of complaints about recruitment abuses in
the records. 21 In fact, recruitment involving the use or threat of violence,
or the condemnation of delinquents to military service, seemed to become
characteristic of this period of military history.
Some corrections or nuancing of this image are certainly necessary. First
of all, one has to consider a certain bias inherent within the primary sources.
While abuses were very likely to initiate resistance and formal complaints,
and therefore the production of archival sources, a routine performed
without opposition tends to be invisible to the historian. Accordingly, it
is impossible to obtain a definitive record of the relative proportions of
voluntary and enforced enlistment. 22 Certainly the assumption that armies
worked with large percentages of forced recruits seems to be unrealistic,
though one should not underestimate either the impact of military disci-
pline even on forced soldiers, which will be discussed below, nor the range
of possible motivations for truly voluntary enlistments.
Secondly, involuntary enlistment took very different forms. Of course, a
large number of examples of forced recruitment exist. For example, many
of them concern Prussian recruitment in the duchy of Mecklenburg in
the first half of the eighteenth century. 23 Obviously the Prussian military
profited from internal struggles in the duchy and from its defencelessness
against its already rather powerful neighbour. Typically, however, most of
these examples took place during the period in which the Prussian king,
Frederick William I, the so-called Soldatenkdnig, implemented a strong
military build-up by doubling the number of Prussian soldiers, so these ex-
amples cannot be considered representative of the usual practice of Prussian
recruitment in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries without broader
21 See Sikora, Disziplin unci Desertion, pp. 221-226; Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland
desi6. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 104-108; Redlich, The German MUitary Enterpriser and His Work
Force, II, pp. 173-181; von Schultz, Die preujiischen Werbungen unter Friedrich Wilhelm I. und
Friedrich dem Grojien. For a collection of abstracts from Westphalian sources on Prussian
recruitment, including documents on the Mdrkischen Aufstand, a local uprising against forced
recruitment in 1720, see Kloosterhuis, Bauern, Burger und Soldaten, I, pp. 23-46.
22 See Prove, Stehendes Heer und stadtische Gesellschaft imiS.Jahrhundert, pp. 42f; in addition
to some reports on recruitment abuses, Prove offers data for one regiment, comparing the
number of recruits during two peacetime decades with the number of official complaints in
the local records, which suggests a ratio of only 5 per cent of irregular recruitments; of course,
the example is small and the number of complaints might not be complete.
23 See von Schultz, Die preujiischen Werbungen unter Friedrich Wilhetml. und Friedrich dem
Grojien.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 207
research. The same thing seems to be true for the use of military service
as a means of social discipline by forcing vagrants and delinquents into
the army. Although there were examples for this in continental armies, 24
and although such examples severely damaged the image of the military
in public discourse, these practices did not contribute significantly to
recruitment overall.
On the other hand, involuntary enlistment did not always involve the
use of violence. It seems to have been far more widespread for young men
to be lured into military service by tricks and traps. 25 For example, some
signed up in taverns after being plied with alcohol; others were dazzled by
unfulfilled promises or high, one-off payments for enlistment; while yet
others accepted gifts only to be told subsequently that these represented a
signing-on fee and that they were now enlisted. Moreover, even when there
was no trickery involved, we should recognize that many men probably went
into the army because of poverty or to escape some acute economic crisis. 26
Although volunteers in a formal sense, they did not join the military with
real enthusiasm. Therefore, even considering that forcible impressment
probably did not represent the norm, non-violent enlistments should not
automatically be regarded as being wholly unforced. In any event, the great
efforts made by governments to recruit soldiers and the undeniable abuses
that this involved underline the fact that the growth of military organiza-
tions strained the reservoir of potential recruits and pushed the traditional
methods of recruitment to their limits.
In response, rulers tried to expand or to develop alternative ways of
recruiting. The options, however, were rather limited, too. Leading powers
with large resources at their disposal could participate in what was later
24 See Kroll, Soldaten im 7&.]ahrhundertzwischenFriedensalltag undKriegserfahrung, pp. 95-98;
Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 94f. Sikora, Disziplin
und Desertion, pp. 229-232, also refers to some critics of the time, who were worried about the bad
influence of such recruits on discipline and the reputation of the military. For some reflections
on the juridical debate, see Fichte, Die Begriindung des Militardienstverhaltnisses, pp. 129-135.
In a literal sense, defectors from the opposing army were considered offenders, too, but their
incorporation into one's own army was quite a common practice.
25 Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion, pp. 226f; Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76.
und7j.Jahrhunderts, pp. 65, losff; for these practices as a subject of popular literature, see the
anonymous booki/sf- und lustige Begebenheiten deren Herren Cfficiers aufWerbungen.
26 Kroll, Soldaten im 78.Jahrhundertzwischen Friedensalltag undKriegserfahrung, pp. 92, 164,
Prove, StehendesHeerundstddtische Gesellschaft im78.Jahrhundert, p. 37, and Burschel, Soldner
im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. und 7j.Jahrhunderts, pp. 54-87, all discuss the high proportion
of recruits from the lower classes of the population, notjust in the eighteenth century.
208
MICHAEL SIKORA
called the soldier-trade. 27 Britain was the most important client, but France
and others also took part in this practice. In short, minor princes, mostly
from the Holy Roman Empire, provided troops in exchange for money
or so-called subsidies. This practice gained a bad reputation in the late
eighteenth century when German princes abandoned their subjects to an
uncertain fate by sending them overseas, seemingly motivated by financial
interests alone. It attracted even more criticism as such soldiers, perceived
as victims of tyrannical arbitrariness, were engaged to fight in the American
Revolution.
In fact, this way of increasing military power was already widespread
in the seventeenth century. From a more formal view, such treaties can
be considered a sort of alliance between rather unequal partners. While
from the perspective of the major power, the business of recruitment could
in a way be farmed out, the minor partner could hope to defend its own
interests by gaining the support of a major player. In the late seventeenth
century even Prussia, not yet a major player, transferred its own troops to
foreign command in exchange for subsidies. 28 The impressive enlargement
of the Prussian army under Frederick William I was mostly motivated by
experiences of dependency and unfulfilled promises.
In the context of the subject to be discussed here, the so-called soldier-
trade further developed pre-existing mechanisms for foreign recruitment,
but exacerbated the need for recruits on the part of the contractor. Even for
the client it did not offer a principal solution since this option could only
be used for a certain time, usually in case of crisis or war. Typically it was
more attractive for Britain than for the continental states because these
troops could not contribute to the permanent strength of a standing army.
Thus, the soldier-trade did not constitute a new principle of recruitment:
it merely exported the problems inherent within the existing system by
outsourcing them to others.
The only human resource rulers could unquestionably mobilize came from
the population of their own territories. Intensifying recruitment therefore
inevitably focused on the domestic population and accordingly contributed
to the increasingly homogeneous composition of armies. In general, mobiliza-
tion of the domestic population was undertaken in two ways. One approach
27 See, for this and the following paragraph, a recent summary and discussion of a long
debate, with much further reading, Wilson, "The German 'Soldier Trade' of the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries"; the most recent contribution, focusing on the everyday life of hired
soldiers, is Huck, Soldaten gegen Nordamerika.
28 Seejany, Geschichte der Koniglich Preufiischen Armee bis zumjahr 7807, 1, pp. 388ff.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 209
was to involve local authorities in the struggle for voluntary enlistments,
either by supporting the recruiting officers or by obliging the authorities to
deliver recruits themselves.* 9 Experiences with this option seem to have been
variable. When required to meet target numbers of recruits, civil officials
tended to avoid confrontations with the local elites by focusing on vagrants,
delinquents, or any outsiders regardless of their physical condition. However,
it did not necessarily provide the military with capable soldiers; this could
generally be better achieved by leaving recruitment in the hands of those
officers who would have to deal with the recruits afterwards.
In addition to these alterations to the established recruiting system,
several rulers tried to make use of the personal obligation of their subjects to
perform military service. From a typological point of view this policy must
be understood as being completely different from voluntary enlistment.
From a historical point of view this policy could connect with old but rather
vague traditions. The duty of collective resistance against aggressors was
deeply rooted in European societies, but it had not only been whittled down
to times of emergency, but was also based on a much smaller geographical
unit than the whole territory, linked as it was to local feudal structures and
to urban 30 or rural 31 municipalities. In the case of a general levy decreed by
the ruler to defend the whole territory, a rather mixed type of military force
could emerge from these structures. 32 In addition to the noblemen following
their feudal obligations, there were rural levies from the noble lands as
well as from the ruler's personal estates, organized by the villages and
court districts, together with contingents from the fortified towns, based
on their own local defence systems. These towns gained a special strategic
importance due to their walls, often connected with a certain degree of
political and military autonomy. The participation of townsmen in defence
of their municipalities, though not generally of much military significance,
can be traced into the seventeenth and even eighteenth centuries. 33
29 For Austria, see Hochedlinger, "Rekrutierung- Militarisierung- Modernisierung", pp. 342-345.
30 The importance of the armed services in German cities has recently been stressed, though
focusing more on public order and civic mentalities than on military functions, by Tlusty, The
Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany.
31 Since local military customs in the countryside are widely unexplored, the edition of a
late-medieval finding of law might be worth taking a look at; see Franz, Quellen zur Geschichte
des deutschen Bauernstandes im Mittelalter, pp. 592-596.
32 A very good example of such complexity of military structures, combined with an edition
of many archival sources, is offered by Schennach, Ritter, Landsknecht, Aufgebot.
33 Of course, sieges as a crucial part of early modern warfare were mostly carried out by perma-
nent or occasional garrison troops as part of the territorial army. On the role of the inhabitants
of a fortified city and their relationship to the garrison troops, see Hohrath, "Der Burger im Krieg
210
MICHAEL SIKORA
Such local military organizations are usually called militias. We lack the
detailed studies that would allow us to construct a comprehensive overview
of the role of militias, although enough is known to establish that they were
of varying military value. Nevertheless, for many early modern contempo-
raries the idea of militia service gained a special importance, with military
philosophers such as Machiavelli associating it with the much-acclaimed
ideal of a republican military force, based on the duty performed by free
citizens and seemingly prefigured in the ancient Roman Republic. 34 In the
English debates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the concept
of militia was counterposed to the much criticized standing armies. 35 In
Germany during the same period, the term "militia" was frequently ill
defined, and could even designate the military as a whole. In the light
of such divergent terminological usage, I should emphasize that in this
chapter "militia" will be used as an analytical category, denoting a kind of
non-professional military service, based on common duties, performed only
on demand, and therefore, in an analytical sense, opposed in principle to
the characteristics of standing professional armies.
It is important to note, however, that in certain regions a new type of
permanent, though non-professional military service emerged several
decades before the establishment of standing armies. Around 1600, threat-
ened by the Eighty Years' War and the increasing tensions within the Holy
Roman Empire, some minor princes and counts of the empire started taking
precautionary measures to prepare their territories for military defence.
And while they lacked the necessary resources to hire significant numbers
of mercenaries, they tried to organize regular military training for a large
number of their subjects who were selected in their communities according
to prescribed ratios. Although the participants retained their civil status
and remained within their localities, they were integrated into a loose
organization, e.g., by dividing them into several companies, which were
assigned to certain captains. From time to time, generally on Sundays,
they were convoked for some basic military training, especially in the use
of guns.
der Fiirsten"; on the participation of citizens in defence efforts, see specifically pp. 321-326. It is,
however, not that easy to find significant examples; Schnitter, Votk unci Landesdefension, referred
to the defence of the Palatine city of Frankenthal against Spanish troops in 1621 and 1622. See also
Egler, Die Spanier in der linksrheinischen Pfalz, pp. 66-68, for her section referring to the Theatrum
Europaeum; seemingly, however, the major burden of defence was sustained by British mercenaries.
34 See Metzger, Die Milizarmee im klassischen Republikanismus.
35 See Schwoerer, No Standing Armies.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750
211
Obviously, these formations 36 still met some crucial criteria for militias,
according to the definition given above. The participants served as non-
professionals, performed common duties, and, in a certain sense, still served
only occasionally. However, at least two basic changes are no less obvious.
Military service within these structures was no longer limited to times of
emergency. In fact, such militias established a kind of periodic military
service in peacetime even several decades before standing armies emerged.
Secondly, the legal framework was renewed. In contrast to earlier levies
the new militias, most often called Landesdefensionen (territorial defence
forces), were not composed of different contingents but formed - at least in
principle and ignoring the practice of privileges and exemptions - a homo-
geneous organization which did not systematically differentiate between
subjects of the ruler, subjects of the noble landlords, and urban inhabit-
ants. Unlike earlier municipal militias, which more or less kept the idea of
municipal autonomy and military self-defence, based - at least theoretically
- on a reciprocal military obligation of the citizens, the Landesdefensionen
were exclusively bound to serve the rulers' policies. Their emergence can
therefore be interpreted as enforcing the state-building process, 37 because
they helped to establish a monopoly of violence and reinforced a trend
towards the equalization of the status of the ruler's subjects at the cost of
former noble and municipal privileges. Of course, one has to be aware of
the diffuse realities that lay behind such theoretical abstractions, but the
further changes to be discussed below will confirm the general thrust of
developments.
Some of these organizations, e.g. in Saxony 38 or in the Electoral Palatinate, 39
in Bavaria, 40 or even in Brandenburg-Prussia, 41 were maintained or resur-
rected even after the end of the Thirty Years War, though these minor
territories started to build up permanent forces too. An even more striking
36 For an overview, see Schnitter, Volk unci Landesdefension.
37 See Schulze, "Die deutschen Landesdefensionen im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert", specifically
P- 133-
38 Naumann, Das kursdchsische Defensionswerk (1613 bis ryog); Kroll, Sotdaten im 18. Jahrhundert
zwischen Friedensatltag und Kriegserfahrung, pp. 125-129.
39 Bezzel, Geschichte des kurpfalzischen Heeres.
40 Wiirdinger, "Die bayerischen Landfahnen vom Jahre 1651-1705"; Staudinger, Geschichte
des kurbayerischen Heeres unter Kurfurst Max II. Emanuel 76S0-7705, I, pp. 648f, II, pp. 785ff,
Geschichte des kurbayerischen Heeres unter Kurfurst Karl Albrecht- Kaiser KarlVII- und Kurfiirst
Max III. Joseph 7726-7777, 1, pp. 2i6ff.
41 Lampe, "Der Milizgedanke und seine Durchfiihrung in Brandenburg-PreuKen", pp. 105-132
(only available as a carbon copy); Gose, "Die brandenburgisch-preuKische Landmiliz". See also,
in regard to the duchy of Prussia, later East Prussia, Marwitz, Staatsrason und landesdefension.
212
MICHAEL SIKORA
example for the relevance of militia forces within the framework of standing
armies emerged in France. Here, local militias endured into the eighteenth
century, providing, for example, soldiers to guard the coasts and borders.
However, in 1688 the establishment of a Royal Militia was decreed. This
step in fact created a new type of militia by transforming the principle of
local military service into a countrywide organization at the disposal of the
king. 42 Varying numbers of militiamen could be called up by changing the
quotas that each village had to supply; men from adjacent villages were put
together in companies; officers were assigned to oversee regular training
on Sundays and holidays. In case of war, they formed provincial regiments
which were put under the command of the army. These units were expected
to support the army in different ways with up to tens of thousands of men,
a small but not insignificant number. The involuntary involvement of the
population during the bellicose reign of Louis XIV, however, also provoked
resistance; service with the militia was perceived as a "blood tax" on poor
people. During the eighteenth century the militia underwent a change of
fortune and was dissolved for many years, but never lost its bad reputation.
From a more general perspective it nevertheless lent the French military
system a kind of hybrid character (Lynn) by founding its recruitment on
two very distinct principles.
Certainly the military value of militia units was limited, and it in fact
diminished in comparison to the increasing efficiency of permanently
maintained troops. Nevertheless, militias or levies were still employed,
even during the heyday of linear warfare in the middle of the eighteenth
century. 43 At the very least they seem to have been reasonably effective as
defence forces for fortified places or against marauders. Thus, in comparison
42 See, for example, Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle, pp. 371-393; Corvisier, L'armee francaise
delafin duXVIIe siecle au ministerede Choiseul, I, pp. 111-119, 197-231; Girard, Racolage etmilice
(7701-1775); Hennet, Les milices et les troupes provinciales.
43 Many militia activities are reported, though not yet systematically explored, from Moravia
and Silesia, the main theatres of the Silesian Wars; they are mentioned in the multi-volume works
of the official historiography, published by the Prussian General Staff, as well as the Austrian.
See GroKer Generalstab, Die Kriege Friedrichs des Grojien, 1. 3, pp. g8f, 101, 108, 118, 140, 161, 178,
286f, 313, II. 1, 77f, 101, 22of, 222f, II. 2, gof, 139, II.3, 136, 143, 179, (and on Saxon militias) 194, 202,
220, III. 8, 3, 34f, 52, 85, 212; corresponding information can be found in Kriegsgeschichtliche
Abteilung des K. und k. Kriegs-Archivs, Kriege unter der Regierung der Kaiserin-Kbnigin Maria
Theresia. Of course, there are also many hints about the lack of efficiency of militias. Striking
is the chaos caused by Hessian militiamen during the Battle of Sandershausen in 1758; they
were positioned in the middle of the battle order, became disoriented, panicked, and fired on
everyone, friend or foe. See Savory, His Britannic Majesty's Army in Germany during the Seven
Years War, pp. g6ff.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 213
to the standing troops, the militias usually played only an auxiliary role.
For example, they could serve as guards, thus relieving the army of some
duties during wartime.
It seems that the most important auxiliary function was to provide
reinforcements for the army, as a pool for voluntary engagement in one
way or another. In practice, the distinctions between these two types of
military organization could become blurred. 44 Sometimes militia units
were used directly to support the army in the field and were more or less
integrated, and sometimes rulers called for direct levies to fill the ranks of
the standing units. Their traditional duty, formerly restricted to cases of
necessity, rooted in local contexts, therefore tended to be transformed, step
by step, into a resource for permanent military efforts at the unrestricted
disposal of the ruler. Of course, one should add the stories of resistance
against such measures.
In the Holy Roman Empire these developments were also reflected in
the discourse on public law in the eighteenth century. 45 The crucial point
was whether the subjects could be forced into military service beyond
those instances of acute necessity, which was out of the question. From the
cabinet's point of view the differences between voluntary enlistment and
impressment were less theoretical than practical. Obviously, standing units
were preferred to militias because of their greater military effectiveness.
Enforcing an obligation on subjects to serve in the militias, on the other
hand, was not only an easy way of recruiting, but also a cheap one, and this
was crucial. Militias did not generate as many costs as standing armies;
even when subjects were forced to enter the permanent units and therefore
came to be paid regularly, nevertheless the initial costs of recruitment and
especially the premiums for engagement (which were considerable) had
been saved.
Furthermore, it is worth discussing the way in which particular problems
of recruitment were solved in Prussia mostly during the second decade of the
eighteenth century, not least because some contemporaries considered this
solution to offer an example to be followed. In comparison to the practices
outlined above, it might be astonishing to see that the Prussian military
build-up started with a seemingly contrary action. Although Prussia had
44 For an overview, see Sikora, Disziplin unci Desertion, pp. 238-243.
45 Fichte, Die Begriindung cies Militdrdienstverhdltnisses, pp. 136-182; Sikora, Disziplin und
Desertion, pp. 236-238; one of the most sophisticated contributions, though clearly situational,
in opposition to recruitments in Wiirttemberg, is [Moser], Abhandtung von Noethigung derer
Unterthanen zu regulairen Kriegs-Diensten.
214
MICHAEL SIKORA
a militia at its disposal at the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was
dissolved by Frederick William I soon after he acceded to the throne. 46 His
action reflected a typical problem concerning recruitment: the existence of
rivalry The militia constrained recruitment to the standing army because
the members of the militia enjoyed the privilege of being exempt from the
reach of the recruiting officers. From this point of view, the abolition of the
militia should have facilitated more or less voluntary enlistment because
the king exclusively favoured the expansion of the standing army.
Yet frictions and rivalries continued, no longer between militia and army,
but between the different regiments of the army, which competed to find
recruits from within the ruler's territories. What would come to constitute
the distinguishing characteristics of the Prussian system of recruitment
did not emerge as the result of an intentional plan, but were developed
piecemeal as solutions for particular problems. 47 They can be summarized
under three headings. First, the regiments tried to lay claim to potential
future recruits to prevent other regiments from taking them. Therefore, at
an early stage they started to put the names of young boys in the area around
their garrisons onto lists, which were intended to reserve the individuals
for service with the local regiment. Secondly, to avoid further conflicts, the
central government started to draw boundary lines between the regiments
and ended up creating recruiting districts, or so-called Kantone, from which
the name Kantonsystem was derived. Once the system was elaborated,
these cantons comprised a certain number of households to assure that
every regiment had similar opportunities for recruitment. Within these
cantons, the future recruits were already systematically registered by the
army during their childhood, a task which was subsequently carried out
with the help of local civil officials.
Since the enlargement of the army absorbed many domestic recruits, the
more so since they were picked out in such a systematic way, the economic
advantages threatened to turn into disadvantages. The price was the loss of
46 In fact, he did so less than two weeks after the death of his father. In 1718, Frederick William
even forbade the use of the word "militia", insisting his troops be called "regiments" or "soldiers".
Obviously the king was very keen on marking the difference: Frauenholz, Das Heerwesen in der
Zeit des Absolutismus, pp. 194, 23if.
47 As a useful outline of the Kantonsystem's development, see Jany, "Die Kantonverfassung
Friedrich Wilhelms I."; the most recent contribution to its exploration is Winter, Untertanengeist
durch Militdrpflicht? (on its emergence see specifically pp. 39-97). For an overview of the
influential debate on the social impact of the Kantonsystem and comparisons with other
practices of domestic recruitment in German territories, see Wilson, "Social Militarization in
Eighteenth-Century Germany". Some documents can be found in Frauenholz, Das Heerwesen
in der Zeit des Absolutismus.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 215
civilian labour force and tax revenue. This could partly be compensated for
by intensifying foreign recruitment, but this was rather costly. It could be
mitigated in detail by excluding certain professions from being recruited,
based on regional and economic factors. 48 The most important way out of
this dilemma, however, was to furlough the domestic soldiers, the Kanton-
isten, for most of the year. In fact, during peacetime, they were obliged to
join the troops only for two months in spring for exercises and manoeuvres.
This was the third main characteristic of the Kantonsystem.
If the parallel existence of standing units and militias maybe perceived
as a hybrid military organization, the Kantonsystem was an even more
bastardized form of recruitment. In its final stage it looked, in regard to
the Kantonisten, very similar to a militia. Unlike in the Landesdefensionen,
however, regular training did not take place in the civilian environment
in the form of afternoon exercises, but was concentrated into a few weeks
on the garrisons' drill grounds; therefore, for most of the year, the soldiers
lived a real civilian life in peacetime (if we disregard some complications in
the details). Nevertheless, they were not organized in a separate institution
from the army, but were mixed in with the mercenaries and formed the
fundamental basis of a standing army, in respect of its numbers as well as
presumably with regard to its mentality, though the latter is rather difficult
to discern.
It should also not be overlooked that the intention behind the Kan-
tonsystem was not to enforce obligatory military service on all potential
Kantonisten, but rather to serve as a tool for the regiments to simply refill
their ranks according to their current needs. After all, it did not emerge as
an improvement of former militias, but as an optimization of regimental
recruitment, which originally was based on individual volunteering. The
Kantonsystem was therefore most precisely characterized as "legalizing a
system of forced domestic recruitment" ("rechtliche Fixierung der inlan-
dischen Zwangswerbung"), 49 a definition that includes the assumption
that genuine voluntary enlistment turned into a rather coercive practice
as the Prussian army doubled in size under Frederick William I. As a result,
however, the system turned violence into a predictable obligation - that is
to say, physical force into legal force - and provided continous reinforce-
ments for the army. Therefore, it seemingly offered exemplary solutions for
48 Kloosterhuis, "Zwischen Aufruhr und Akzeptanz", Bauern, Burger unci Soldaten; Winter,
Untertanengeist (lurch Militdrpflicht?, specifically pp. 263-275.
49 Von Schmoller, Umrisse und Untersuchungen zur Verfassungs-, Verwaltungs- und Wirtschafts-
geschichte besonders des Preufiischen Staates, p. 278.
216
MICHAEL SIKORA
typical structural problems of the time and inspired similar efforts in other
territories, such as Hesse-Cassel and Austria. 50
One should add that the implementation of the Kantonsystem in particu-
lar as well as militias in general had to take account of the local distribution
of power since feudal structures were still of great importance in parts of
central Europe. This was especially true in regard to the so-called Gutsherr-
sckaft in parts of Brandenburg, where peasants were subject to a rigorous
form of serfdom. However, turning them into Kantonisten also implied
that they had been (at least partially) transferred from the jurisdiction of
their landlords to the jurisdiction of the military. Although they may be
said to have been doubly unfree, there are also hints that the rivalry of two
authorities could strengthen their position in conflicts with their landlords.
Therefore, the consequences of compulsory service in pre-modern societies
may possibly turn out to be rather complex, though this cannot be discussed
in detail here.
Looking at the composition of armies during the course of these transfor-
mations, but also considering the early modern period as a whole, requires
at least two additional points to be made. First, most observations, including
those outlined above, deal with the bulk of the army, which was constituted
by the infantry. However, the cavalry continued to play an important role
on the battlefield as well forming a not insignificant element of the forces.
Although this aspect is neglected by historical research, it nevertheless
seems that the recruiting of cavalrymen could usually be maintained by
way of voluntary enlistment, and the system did not face the problems
encountered with the recruitment of infantrymen. This was probably linked
to the cavalry's higher reputation and possibly also with a less exhausting
kind of service. Whatever the case, the cavalry did not necessitate the
utilization of any new methods of recruitment.
This is also true, albeit for different reasons, with regard to specialist
units with more technical functions, such as the artillery. Although their
importance on the battlefield increased, they still formed only small units
50 Ingrao, The Hessian Mercenary State, pp. 132-135; the impact on rural society has been
analysed by Taylor, Indentured to Liberty, whose results provoked a little controversy; see the
review by Charles Ingrao, Central European History 27 (1994), pp. 509-512, and the reply by Taylor,
"Disagreement over the Hessian Military State of the Eighteenth Century". Graf, "Landesdefen-
sion oder 'Fundamentalmilitarisierung'?", discusses the influences of the older Hessian militias.
The rules for the introduction of Kantone in Hesse, decreed in 1762, are printed in Auerbach
and Frohlich, Hessische Truppen im Amerikanischen Unabhdngigkeitskrieg, III, pp. 2gff. For
Austria, see Szabo, Kaunitz and Enlightened Absolutism 1753-7780, pp. 258-295; Hochedlinger,
"Rekrutierung - Militarisierung - Modernisierung", pp. 345-353.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 217
with long-serving soldiers, so that the need for recruits was rather limited
and had no relevant impact on the principles of military organization. 51
The same does not apply, however, to the role of the nobility. Military
service was an essential part of the nobility's collective identity and legiti-
macy. That did not mean that the glorified traditions of martial endeavour
and chivalry aligned with military practice at the end of the seventeenth
century. Nor did it mean that every nobleman actually joined the army. In
fact, the Prussian king Frederick William I, once again, not only forced his
subjects into military service, but also expected the noble houses of his
territory to send at least one son into the army, an expectation that was oc-
casionally enforced with all the means at his disposal. 52 The military service
of the domestic nobility should have facilitated control either over the army
or over the nobility itself. For many noblemen, in Prussia as elsewhere, a
period of military service, even if only for a limited number of years, still
constituted a meaningful and indisputable part of their biography and
an honourable way to earn a living, at least in a symbolic sense, since the
income of many officerships did not cover the costs of keeping up noble
appearances, which therefore must have been paid for out of the family
fortune.
In terms of the army's composition, the military service of the nobility
represented a third constituent of military service alongside voluntary
enlistment and the obligation of the subjects. The service of the nobles
was based on a framework of cultural values and traditions 53 from which
ordinary soldiers were excluded and, although the noble members of the
military comprised only a minority of the military personnel, their impor-
tance was enhanced by the fact that they almost exclusively occupied the
officerships. This reflected their privileged position in the society of orders,
and the transference of these principles into the military inevitably led to
a fundamental separation between the officers and the ordinary men with
regard to reputation, rank, and mentality. This, however, also corresponded
to the latter's everyday experience in civilian life.
Of course, it has to be admitted that not every officer was of noble origin.
This was especially true for the technical branches of the army; first of all
the artillery, where the need for specialist knowledge made the service
less attractive for nobles. This notwithstanding, even in the infantry and
51 See, for example, Duffy, The Army of Maria Theresa, p. 108.
52 Blisch, Militarsystem unci Sozialleben im alten Preufien, pp. 79-83; Gose, "Zwischen Garnison
und Rittergut".
53 Some general observations can be found in Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion, pp. 343-350.
218
MICHAEL SIKORA
cavalry there was some opportunity for military careers to be pursued by
non-noble soldiers who distinguished themselves. However, until the era of
revolution and reform these cases continued to be individual exceptions,
albeit with some fluctuations over time. Periods of extended warfare, above
all the Thirty Years War, favoured such careers 54 while the perpetuation of
the military organization even tended to stabilize the connection between
social and military hierarchy. Additionally it should be noted that climbers
from the lower ranks were mostly ennobled as they rose up the military
hierarchy. In a certain sense they adjusted to prevailing socio-cultural
norms.
By contrast with the common soldiers, no structural changes have been
detected with regard to noble entrants to the army as a result of the intro-
duction of standing armies. The pressure exercised by the king of Prussia
does not seem to be representative. The transformation of the military
into a permanent organization, however, changed the framework for all
levels of military service. To complete the outline of the whole process
this dimension has to be added to the discussion around recruitment. It
certainly also influenced the motivation of possible recruits.
Observations: conditions
First of all, the permanence of the military allowed for the period of military
service to be significantly extended. Wholesale demobilizations at the
end of a war were reduced step by step, 55 although all states, even in the
eighteenth century, still continued to make use of the short-term formation
and disbandment of units. 56 On the whole, however, armies started to offer
options for lifelong careers, or at least a livelihood, though the changes
should not be exaggerated. Long periods of armed conflict, especially
the Thirty Years War, prolonged in France by the Franco-Spanish War,
required long-term service which had not actually been desired for its own
sake at this time. The introduction of standing armies, however, not only
institutionalized long-term service, but also established peacetime military
service as a common practice for many thousands of military employees. 57
54 See Kaiser, "1st er vom Adel?"
55 The ongoing practice of army reductions even after 1648 has been emphasized by Kroener,
'"Der Krieg hat ein Loch
56 A recently presented example is Nowosadtko, Stehendes Heer im Stdndestaat, pp. 159-178.
57 Ibid., pp. 180-185; Prove, Stehendes Heer und stadtische Gesellschaft im 78. Jahrhundert,
pp. 88-94; Fann, "On the Infantryman's Age in Eighteenth Century Prussia".
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 219
It should be stressed, on the one hand, that this did not mean that a
lifelong military occupation became the norm. Of course, the military
authorities tried to keep their soldiers in service as long as possible. This
was a traditional source of friction between military commanders and
the soldiers because, 58 during wartime, the authorities had always tried
to compel the soldiers to serve until the end of the conflict. In peacetime
standing armies, the circumstances were far less dramatic, but long-term
service was still in the interests of the authorities because it kept military
experience and skills in the army and saved the cost and effort of recruit-
ment. They therefore tried to impose long-term service as the only option;
for example, in Prussia and Bavaria voluntary enlistment was in principle
unlimited. There is some evidence from the eighteenth century that in fact
soldiers increasingly tended to spend their whole professional life serving
in one army.
On the other hand, this situation was not in the interests of potential
recruits. There is evidence that most soldiers preferred to serve for a limited
time and that there was room for negotiation over the length of service
in some circumstances. 59 Whether recruitment was being carried out in
peacetime or in wartime obviously made a difference. During the Silesian
Wars and the Seven Years War, Bavaria quickly resorted to contracts limiting
military service to no more than three years just to get soldiers to sign on
at all. 60 Subsequent disagreements over the contract and date of dismissal
resulted in conflict and desertions.
Alongside the introduction of a standing army, payment and subsistence
had to be permanently provided, which proved a major challenge for state
bureaucracies and especially for their treasuries, as well as being a major
factor in changing the character of soldiers' working conditions. In fact,
the authorities managed the challenge by pragmatically developing mixed
systems, which varied from time to time and from territory to territory, but
which typically comprised a number of components. Such expedients had
to some extent been prefigured during the Thirty Years War when they
had developed as a result of the circumstances which mostly did not allow
regular payment.
58 Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force, p. 218; Sikora, Disziplin unci
Desertion, pp. 193-196.
59 Once again, see Nowosadtko, Stehendes Heer im Stdndestaat, pp. 180-185; Prove, Stehendes
Heer und stadtische Gesellschaft im iS.Jahrhundert, pp. 88-94.
60 Staudinger, Geschichte des kurbayerischen Heeres unter Kurfurst Karl Albrecht - Kaiser Karl
VII. - und Kurfurst Max III. Joseph 7726-7777,, I, pp. 24of.
220
MICHAEL SIKORA
Of course, a monthly payment continued to form the core of remunera-
tion. While the pay of the mercenaries, at least its nominal level, had been
relatively stable during the sixteenth century, some fluctuation can be
observed during the second half of the seventeenth century, probably be-
cause of the conditions of the recruitment market. As a whole the nominal
level of the monthly pay tended to decrease by up to 50 per cent, although
precise comparisons are difficult to draw. 61
One element in the soldier's monetary compensation was the premium,
or signing-on bounty, paid as a reward for voluntary enlistment, and this did
increase in importance. Originally recruits had received a certain sum to
cover the costs of travelling from the place of recruitment to the place where
the recruits were mustered. Later on, this payment changed its function
and became a very flexible device that recruiters used to compete with one
another. 62 Of course, the premium was designed to overcome a potential
recruit's immediate concerns and to obscure the conditions of long-term
service, and certainly its value to the recruit was negligible in the context
of an extended period of soldiering. Nevertheless, the premium might
well have weighed heavily with some potential recruits as they sought to
evaluate the benefits and risks of signing on. On the whole, it is clear that
the military authorities focused their efforts on the act of enlistment. Once
recruited, the men were subjected to the judicial consequences of their
contract and oath 63 and the constraints of the institution. In this sense,
premiums, as well as forced recruitments, compensated for a lack of supply,
which was partly caused by poor salaries, which, for their part, resulted
from the costs of standing armies.
The monetary payment did not cover all the soldier's needs. He required
clothes and weapons, food, quarters, and some everyday commodities. In
contrast to previous practice, clothes and weapons were usually delivered by
the authorities. This was, incidentally, the reason why clothing became more
and more "uniform", since it was ordered in large quantities and increasingly
prescribed in detail. 64 In some armies and in some periods, however, the
61 Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 188, igif.; Redlich,
The German Military Enterpriser and His WorkForce, II, pp. 27, 29.
62 Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 102-104; Redlich,
The German Military Enterpriser and His WorkForce, II, pp. 15-18.
63 Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion, p. 129; Fichte, Die Begriindung des Militardienstverhaltnisses,
pp. 88-118.
64 Hohrath, "Uniform"; deep insights into the material culture of an eighteenth-century
army, with plenty of illustrations, are now provided by Hohrath, Friedrich der Grojie und die
Uniformierung der preujiischen Armee.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 221
cost of the equipment was deducted from soldiers' pay. There were similar
options to ensure the nourishment of the soldiers. Sometimes the soldiers
had to use their pay to buy food on the open market; at other times basic
foodstuffs were delivered to the army. In this case, sometimes the food was
free and at times it was deducted from the soldier's pay. Finally, in many
territories, lodging was still provided by the civilian population, since the
construction of barracks, as in France, remained the exception rather than
the rule, and the soldiers were allocated to private households. Commodities
that the soldiers could demand in many cases included wood, wax, salt,
pepper, and vinegar. It seems to have been a widespread practice to shift
the delivery of these items to the hosts, which could be considered a kind
of tax. In some regions the hosts even had to serve the food for the soldiers.
Thus, the income of the soldiers was a mix of money and non-cash ben-
efits. 65 It is difficult to evaluate the totals, but it seems reasonable to suggest
that the level of the soldiers' income was comparable with the earnings of
day-labourers or clerks on the lowest level. This may have allowed at best a
modest, but stable living, though some documents also reveal complaints
of poor conditions. These were also reflected in the regulations restricting
the soldier's right to marry. Such restrictions were designed to limit the
number of dependent women and children in armies, with their associated
costs. 66 For a minority of soldiers things could turn for the better since
wages grew significantly as they climbed the hierarchy of ranks. Common
soldiers could supplement their income by taking on additional overtime
shifts within the military, and also by offering their labour on the civilian
market or by selling simple products. 67 Many of them, for example, were
former journeymen. So even non-military components can be added to a
diversified set of income sources and benefits, which on the whole ensured
the livelihood of the soldiers.
The non-military aspect of the soldier's occupation directs the focus to the
form of military service itself. Customary peacetime functions consisted of
guard duty and sometimes possibly small missions to maintain public order,
since the authorities did not yet have the large numbers of personnel required
65 These paragraphs are a summary of the findings of Burschel, Soldner imNordwestdeutschland
des 76. undry.Jahrhunderts, pp. 188-192; Redlich, The German MUitary Enterpriser and His Work
Force, II, pp. 236-258.
66 Much deeper insight on this subject can be found in Engelen, Soldatenfrauen in Preujien;
on the regulations, see pp. 41-68.
67 Nowosadtko, Stehendes Heer im Stdndestaat, pp. 234-241; Kroll, Soldaten im i8.Jahrhundert
zwischen Friedensalltag und Kriegserfahrung, pp. 286-289; Prove, Stehendes Heer undstddtische
Gesellschaft im i8.Jahrhundert, pp. 252-266, also discusses illegal incomes.
222
MICHAEL SIKORA
to enforce the civil law. However, these functions could be fulfilled by a small
fraction of the soldiers recruited into the burgeoning standing armies. In
fact soldiers of these armies enjoyed a lot of time unoccupied by military
duties, 68 as their additional earnings indicated. They fulfilled their military
function, at least partly, by their simple presence and availability. Of course, the
maintenance of their fighting abilities was part of their everyday life as well.
This military training corresponded to the principles of so-called linear
warfare which took its more or less final shape towards the end of the
seventeenth century. 69 The collective formations of the soldiers had changed
over decades from large squares to broad but thin lines only four or three
men deep. Since trained infantrymen deployed in such a fashion presented
a powerful defensive formation, the extra numbers recruited into armies
could be used to broaden the formation, with the option of outflanking
the adversary. For the majority of soldiers the objectives of military train-
ing derived from this formation although the enduring importance of the
cavalry and the growing importance of the artillery should not be denied.
It is well known and obvious even from this very short description that
this kind of warfare did not call for outstanding dexterity and flexibility
on the part of the soldiers. The main issue was to ensure that they were
obedient and acted in a co-ordinated way. The major skills required were
the use of the musket and collective movements of the whole body of troops.
The handling of the musket was broken down into a certain number of
distinct movements which were linked to specific commands. Contem-
porary military authors loved to illustrate this technique by presenting
image sequences which in a certain sense prefigured modern instruction
manuals by representing standardized operations. 70 This dissection of the
required movements seemingly facilitated teaching the recruits the use of
muskets, which in fact required a complex sequence of manoeuvres since
they were still one-shot muzzle loaders. Additionally, the fragmentation
allowed progress in co-ordinating the action of the troops. By dividing a
single operation into a series of discrete movements, the operation could
be reconstructed as a collective action. Even more delicate was the chal-
lenge of moving many thousands of men on the battlefield in the described
way, when the front of an army could span several kilometres. This not
68 Prove, Stehendes Heer unci stddtische Gesellschaft im iS.Jahrhundert, pp. 155-159; Burschel,
Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 214-217.
69 Lynn, Battle, pp. 111-125.
70 Sikora, "Die Mechanisierung des Kriegers"; see also Wellmann, "Hand und Leib, Arbeiten
und Uben".
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 223
only required strict discipline to keep the soldiers in line but, in advance
of this, long columns of marching soldiers also had to be deployed and
transformed into a line, ideally without considerable gaps opening up and
sections overlapping, all the while taking account of the conditions on the
battlefield and the actions of the adversaries.
To keep control over the troops according to these principles and under
such circumstances, peacetime training seemingly was inevitable and must
therefore be considered a crucial precondition for linear warfare. Of course,
there were some differences between chronological periods and armies with
regard to the intensity of the training, which ranged from one or two times
a week up to daily exercises in the later Prussian army, albeit still limited to
the morning. 71 Training for collective movements was done in small units
since the performance of large-scale manoeuvres required considerable
effort and these were reduced to, at best, annual events, which may have
become spectacular affairs attracting members of the court and foreign
observers. 72 Certainly it must be admitted that the theory in books and even
the practice on the parade ground did not exactly represent the reality of
the battlefield, something which will not be discussed at this juncture. On
the other hand, however, regular training not only implied something like
an employment scheme for the soldiers and an attempt to control future
battles, but also a certain military mentality.
This elaborate method of military training, which became well known as
drill, can be traced back to the end of the sixteenth century, when the military
leaders of the Dutch revolt tried to increase the efficiency of their military
forces in their struggle against the superior Spanish army. Their reforms
were inspired not only by military experience, but also by contemporary
philosophy and the ideas of military authors of late antiquity. 73 Therefore, they
propagated not only certain details of military tactics and training, but also
the ethical ideals of the perfect soldier, which were integrated into a renewed
concept of military discipline. While losing some of its sophistication, the idea
of discipline remained a key concept in the debates of military authors. It was
substantiated not only in the image sequences mentioned above, but also in
71 All details of Prussian military training, at least as they were intended to be fulfilled, can be
derived from regulations which covered the entire spectrum of military duties and are mostly
available as reprints; the most important are Reglementvor die Konigl. Preujiische Infanterie [...]
(Potsdam, 1726, repr. Onsbariick, 1968) and, Reglementvor die Konigl. Preujiische Infanterie [...]
(Berlin, 1943, repr. Osnabriick, 1976).
72 Luh, Kriegskunst in Europa 1650-1800, pp. 194-208.
73 Sikora, "Die Mechanisierung des Kriegers"; Sicken, "Die oranische Heeresreform"; Hahlweg,
Die Heeresreformer der Oranier unddie Antike,
224
MICHAEL SIKORA
various ways in which weapon-handling was dealt with in the growing num-
ber of military manuals, which tended to increase the number of individual
movements soldiers were expected to perform and commands they had to
obey 74 They shaped an image of soldiers as subject to a rather mechanical
ideal of training and fighting. Beyond the pure rationale of combat efficiency
the whole appearance of the soldiers was expected to reflect the qualities of
discipline and obedience that imbued their whole being.
Once again it should be stressed that the reality of the parade ground
probably looked much more prosaic than theories and manuals suggest, but
without doubt the introduction of standing armies created the conditions
for a significantly higher level of control over the soldiers. This control was
expressed through more than just regular drills. It became manifest in a
certain weakening of the soldiers' rights as well. In contrast to the mercenar-
ies in the armies of the sixteenth century, who had cultivated some elements
of corporate autonomy and representation based on their self-conception as
contractual partners, 75 members of the standing armies were increasingly
subject to the one-sided duties confirmed by their oaths and subordinated
to a militaryjustice that was handled by academically trained jurists in the
interests of and according to the guidelines of the rulers. As one example, it
has been observed that, starting with the Dutch reformers, the soldiers were
confronted with demands to carry out construction work on entrenchments
and fortifications. 76 Although the real extent of such work cannot be quanti-
fied, the claim marks a significant change, since such duties were strongly
resisted during the heyday of mercenary business as incompatible with the
honour of the warriors. The increase in control in the seventeenth century
was also reflected in the intensified use of written means of registration
and periodic inventory. 77 Even the distribution of uniform clothing can be
regarded as a symbolic expression of increasing control as it reduced the
opportunity for individual expression and even eccentricity, which seems
to have been quite typical of the older mercenary tradition. 78
74 Kleinschmidt, Tyrocinium Mititare.
75 Baumann, Landsknechte, pp. 92-130; Moller, Das Regiment der Landsknechte, pp. 52-112.
76 Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des 76. und i/.Jahrhunderts, pp. 137-138.
77 See, for France, the insight in the vast possible quantity of data from the French records
provided by Corvisier, Les controles des troupes de I'Ancien Regime. Almost all Prussian lists
were lost during the Second World War, but even a single example can give an impression
of the intensity of documentation; see (with photographic reproductions of the lists) Hanne
(introduction), Rangirrolle, Listen und Extracte ... von Saldern Infanterie Regiment Anno 7777.
78 Rogg, "Zerhauen und zerschnitten, nachadelichen Sitten", including reflections on the
interdependence between military clothing, civilian clothing, and the progress of military
discipline. For a number of visual examples, see Rogg, Landsknechte und Reislaufer.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 225
Seemingly, the military turned out to be that element of the population
that was best controlled and most disciplined by the authorities, with the
exception of prisoners. However, a mere listing of those factors that drove
the move towards the implementation of ever more restrictive discipline
should not lead us to believe that the military was transformed into a
frictionless machine (not an arbitrary metaphor, but one which became
common at least during the eighteenth century). 79 Although it is almost
impossible to compare the level of insubordination and refusal, abuse, and
disorder over time and changing conditions, at least the manifestations
of refusal seem to have changed their profile. While mutinies apparently
caught much attention and reflected the structures typical of the classic
mercenary armies, 80 they mostly disappeared from around the middle of
the seventeenth century or were at least reduced to minor and exceptional
incidents. This might have been the combined result of several factors: the
increase in control and the decrease in collective advocacy of common
interests, but also the stabilization of maintenance and payment which,
though the sums were still rather poor, nevertheless probably prevented
discontent and resistance.
On the other hand, desertion started to attract much more attention
and effort. 81 To be sure, soldiers had deserted in the preceding period, too,
perhaps in significant numbers, but the phenomenon remained relatively
invisible to historians, since even contemporary authorities did not or were
not able to focus on this subject. From the second half of the seventeenth
century, however, desertion was especially addressed in an increasing num-
ber of edicts and decrees. It became more precisely defined in these edicts
and in the juridical debate, and in Germany even the word started to become
established as a technical term. 82 The growing tendency of authorities to
categorize, list, and archive thus provides the historian with more abundant
documentation of the phenomenon which, although often fragmentary,
allows a more complete picture to be established than for earlier periods.
79 See Sikora, Disziplin unci Desertion, pp. 45f; for the parallels between the military discourse
and the discourse on state politics, see Stollberg-Rilinger, Der Staatats Maschine.
80 Parker, "Mutiny and Discontent in the Spanish Army of Flanders"; Baumann, "Protest
und Verweigerung in der Zeit der klassischen Soldnerheere"; Burschel, Soldner im Nordwest-
deutschland des 76. undry.Jahrhunderts, pp. 195-198.
81 See Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion; on desertion before the era of standing armies, see
the contributions from Reinhard Baumann, Michael Kaiser and Peter Burschel in Brockling
and Sikora, Armeen und ihre Deserteure; for a different viewpoint, see Muth, Flucht aus dem
militdrischen Atltag.
82 Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion, pp. 54f.
226
MICHAEL SIKORA
The motives for desertion must be regarded as diverse, but certainly
enforced enlistment, violent modes of training and disciplining, and contro-
versies over the conditions of service played a major role during peacetime.
Of course, the reasons and motives for desertion took a much more exis-
tential shape during wartime, due to considerable physical exertion, poor
weather conditions, the lack of maintenance, and disintegration caused by
military defeats. But even then, at least, mutinies remained an exception.
Therefore, on the whole, the intensified focus on desertion does not
just indicate friction and considerable differences between the ideal of
discipline and control and the realities of garrison life and campaigns.
Alongside this, desertion must partly be interpreted as a reaction to, and
an unintended result of, an increasing level of control and coercion. Thirdly,
however, the efforts to record and to prevent desertion themselves reflect
the increasing efficiency of control. In this sense the shift from mutinies
to desertions can also be labelled as the individualization, isolation, and
marginalization of refusal.
In summary, the introduction of standing armies significantly changed
the conditions of military service and the appearance of the soldiers. The
permanence of the organization even during peacetime transformed
military service into a reliable long-term, if not lifelong, occupation which,
paradoxically, meant that fighting was not the only job undertaken by sol-
diers. Continuous training ensured a higher level of fighting skills, although
these skills consisted of rather simple, mechanical manual operations. One
should also note the significantly higher level of regulation, control, and
discipline, which were accompanied by a greater use of coercion and internal
violence. To situate the period 1650-1750 and the central European experi-
ence within the broader framework of military labour, however, requires
some further discussion of basic issues, not least recruitment, for the method
of recruitment profoundly influenced the basic constitution of the military.
General discussion: structures of recruitment
As outlined above, recruitment changed its shape, too. Since the concept
of mercenary service seems to be inevitably connected with the principle
of free contracting, the growing importance both of forced enlistment
and of part-time soldiers such as militiamen or Kantonisten may indicate
a possible discrepancy and the need for a reassessment of our typological
categorization. On the one hand, one must stress the increasingly hybrid
character of the processes of recruitment as a pronounced feature of this
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 227
stage of the development. It is characteristic mainly because it indicates a
crisis in the customary modes of recruitment, as described above.
On the other hand, soldiers serving on the basis of a contract still formed
the backbone of the armies. Of course, the increasing number of soldiers
who were forced into a contract partly changed the face of military service
and violated the principles of voluntary enlistment. However, it is hardly
possible to define the forced soldiers as a new and distinctive type of mili-
tary service. First of all, it is impossible to quantify precisely that proportion
of the soldiers who really had volunteered, for whatever reason, how many
of them had been duped, and how many had been forced into the army by
other means. The number of involuntary soldiers, however defined, was
probably significant, but there is no basis for the assumption that they
were dominant. Rather, and more importantly, one has to assume that,
beyond the ideal types of voluntary enlistments and enlistments forced
by physical violence, the distinctions between voluntary and involuntary
were quite fluid.
At least, the military authorities did not draw any distinction and dealt
with all the contracted soldiers according to the terms of contract or, in
practice, according to their own view of those terms. The one-sided interpre-
tation of military duties imposed by the authorities could add yet another
aspect of force to the conditions of service from which all soldiers suffered
in the same way. On the other hand, the authorities did not order or even
legalize forced recruitments. However, they were widely tolerated. At most,
authorities exceptionally intervened when forced recruitments caused too
much dissent. Jurists who considered the issue dealt very cautiously with
it. At least, the number of scholars who critically discussed the validity of
a contract concluded by force gradually grew. 83 The crucial point was that
the authorities insisted on high numbers of recruits with no respect to the
actual supply on the labour market.
Therefore, more or less inevitably, force and violence were adopted by the
recruiting officers in times of exceptional demand. It was a means for them
to deal with low supply, to compete with other recruiters, and to fulfil the
demands of their superiors. This might have happened within or beyond the
borders of the territory and therefore still resulted in individual contracts
without systematic recourse to any general obligations of the subjects. Obvi-
ously, these practices introduced more force into the military organizations
and, in this sense, might be seen in parallel to the increasing importance
83 Fichte, Die Begriindung des Militardienstverhaltnisses , pp. 123-136, correcting Sikora,
Disziplin und Desertion, p. 222.
228
MICHAEL SIKORA
of military drill. They emerged gradually as an unpremeditated corollary
of armies' growth and, in a formal sense, still harked back to the character
of voluntary enlistment, ending up in an individual contract. Therefore it
seems reasonable to address these practices as an extreme or maybe even
corrupted variety within the framework of individual engagement, at least
intended to be voluntary. Since they were not systematically introduced,
were without legal basis, and had no definite characteristics, they can
hardly be analysed as a distinctive and discrete alternative principle.
In contrast, this was definitely the case with regard to the militias. Their
importance may be discussed in an even broader context, as possible fore-
runners of the military draft. For example, Andre Corvisier unhesitatingly
considered the establishment of the Royal Militia in 1688 as the start of
the draft in France. 84 Of course, the Prussian Kantonsystem has also been
discussed in regard to the emergence of the draft. Though a certain continu-
ity cannot be denied - and was even emphasized by Prussian reformers at
the beginning of the nineteenth century 85 - one should be aware that the
system was not intended to impose military service generally across the
board but to serve as a tool for a selective supplementation of the regiments.
Moreover, like other militia organizations, it was embedded in a pre-modern
society, and accordingly included a long list of exemptions from service as a
Kantonist due to collective privileges or for economic reasons. Thus, these
organizations were far from implementing a general and equal duty with
all its socio-political implications.
Even from a more pragmatic perspective one has to keep in mind that,
in the framework of the standing armies, the militias' functions remained
mostly subsidiary to those of the units of long-term professional soldiers.
In most territories, militiamen, numerically, formed only a small or at least
the smaller proportion of the military. Although militia units were used
on the battlefield, alongside the line regiments, large-scale warfare was
based on the standing professional army. When militias were used as pools
for recruitment, they simply turned into a more refined option for the
reinforcement of the standing armies.
The example of the Prussian Kantonsystem stands out as an exception
since the call-up of peasants established a semi-professional - or, in regard
84 Corvisier, "Les transformations de l'armee au XVIIe siecle", p. 90. For a recent contribution
to this debate, see Hippler, Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies, which includes considerations
on the Royal Militia, pp. 18-23.
85 For a discussion on tradition and innovation in regard to the Prussian military reforms, see
Sikora, "Militarisierung und Zivilisierung", pp. 172-178; Winter, "Kontinuitat oder Neuanfang?"
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750
229
to their absence for the most part of the year, somewhat like a "quarter"-
professional - structure as a pillar of the state's military strength. From its
emergence, however, this system can be traced back to pragmatic solutions
avoiding the abuses of voluntary enlistment and did not emerge from the
militias. As mentioned above, the Prussian militias were dissolved even
before the establishment of the Kantonsystem, since they weakened the
number of potential recruits for the recruiters. It is also remarkable that,
later on, the Prussian officials still fell back on the militias in times of urgent
necessity. During the Seven Years War in particular, regional militias were
raised. 86 As local and regional defence forces they simply performed the tra-
ditional function of militias. In relation to the standing armies they served
as an emergency stopgap if troops were absent and provided, in practice,
hardly any real support for the army. The burden of strategic warfare was
exclusively shouldered by the permanent units including the Kantonisten.
To sum up, standing armies of this period should still be considered as
being dominated by the principle of individual enlistment, intended to be
voluntary. If this argument is accepted, one can describe military service
in this period as mostly characterized by free and commodified forms of
labour. In fact, this points to a basic similarity with the preceding forms of
mercenary service since this maybe considered as the major manifestation of
commodified military labour. As has been pointed out, not all military service
was of this kind, and the principle of free and commodified labour was to some
degree adulterated by the growing use of impressment, the incorporation of
militiamen into the professional forces, and the hybrid type of Kantonisten.
Nevertheless, the essence of mercenary service still was far from eroded
altogether. Whether to still call these organizations mercenary armies or
not depends upon one's point of view: whether one wants to stress that the
changes around 1500 and around 1800 were much more deeply rooted and
categorical than the changes around 1700, or whether one wants to privilege
the differences that have been outlined on the preceding pages. The author
would tend to stress the continuity of mercenary service; 87 although obvi-
ously significant and profound changes of military organizations took place
during the period under discussion, they cannot be simply described as a
disappearance of mercenary structures. The change emerged and proceeded
within a framework dominated by paid military service.
86 Lampe, "Der Milizgedanke und seine Durchfiihrung in Brandenburg-PreuKen", pp. 138-148;
Schwartz, Organisation und Verpflegung der preussischen Lanmilizen im Siebenjahrigen Krieg.
87 For broader argumentation on the characteristics of mercenary service and its significance
in regard to early modern military structures, see Sikora, "Soldner".
230
MICHAEL SIKORA
It should be noted, however, that the concept of the mercenary, although
the term is well established in common and scientific language, raises some
problems. From the beginning of the early modern period, since the days
of Machiavelli, mercenaries were the object not only of military discourse,
but also of political and moral attributions. This was exacerbated from
the perspective of observers looking back from the nineteenth century,
who condemned mercenary service as a fundamental contradiction to the
basic values of the nation-state. Even nowadays the debate on mercenaries
depends not only on objective analysis, but also on political outlook. For
example, modern juridical definitions of mercenaries in fact exclude such
institutions as the French and Spanish Foreign Legions which, according to
widespread understanding, are otherwise perceived as typical examples of
mercenary units; the criteria of these definitions are also difficult to apply
to an unequivocal classification of private military companies. 88 Therefore,
the term "mercenary service" must be used with caution and reflection.
Since the ideological components of mercenary definitions complicate
the analytical use of the concept, the definition should be reduced to its
crucial formal feature, which is the individual contract as the basis of a - at
least intentional - free and commodified type of military labour. In this
sense, the concept of mercenary service still seems the most adequate cat-
egory for use in characterization and analysis of the dominating structure
of military service in the eighteenth century. Thus, to discuss the transi-
tions of mercenary armies, one has to revert to a lower level of structural
characteristics, just to gain slightly more sophisticated arguments. Such
arguments can be determined from the common characteristics that usu-
ally are associated with the concept of mercenary service.
General discussion: factors of cohesion
One such characteristic seems to be the general understanding that merce-
naries are basically defined by the fact that they were foreigners in relation
to their engagement. The category of foreigner raises problems when used
88 See, for example, Major, "Mercenaries and International Law"; recent publications onjuridi-
cal problems concerning mercenary business include Bakker and Sossai, Multilevel Regulation
of Military andSecurity Contractors; Francioni and Ronzitti, War by Contract; and in a historical
context Sikora, "Soldner", pp. 2iif. The juridical framework was fixed as a resolution of the
General Assembly of the United Nations in the International Convention against the Recruit-
ment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, A/Res/44/34, 4 December 1989, http://www.
un.org/ga/documents/gadocs.htm.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 231
in the context of the early modern period. For example, the Spanish army
fighting against the Dutch Revolt, several decades before the era discussed
here, was composed of a significant portion of Dutch soldiers, 89 who accord-
ingly fought in their own homeland and for their legitimate ruling authority
On the other hand, they were in a rather ambiguous position since they
could also be viewed as foreign members of a foreign army Other examples
from the Thirty Years' War, chosen at random, reveal the predominantly
regional character of voluntary enlistment, or mercenary engagement,
depending on the place where the recruitment was undertaken. 90 This could
mean that large numbers of a ruler's subjects joined up when the ruler or
his army commander decided to initiate recruitment within or close to
the ruler's territory.
Although the composition of armies before 1650 obviously was not of
purely foreign origin as most definitions of mercenary would imply, it seems
that the percentage of homeland recruits increased as a consequence of the
establishment of standing armies; above all, as a consequence of increased
efforts to raise recruits from the ruler's own territory. It is true that pro-
portions varied, but nevertheless genuinely foreign recruits remained a
significant element of armies. Change, in this respect, was more gradual
than is suggested by those who pose a sharp dichotomy between mercenary
and standing armies. Indeed, one may argue that although the percentage of
domestic recruits grew significantly, this was not the defining characteristic
of standing armies since the number of foreigners in their ranks remained
relevant. To put it another way, this fact indicates that, in principle, the
origin of the soldiers was still largely irrelevant. It would probably be helpful
and adequate for analytical purposes to simply omit the criterion of origin
for defining mercenary service, at least in regard to the early modern period,
but this is not essential for the problems discussed here.
A more significant change may be detected regarding the framework of
military labour. Some aspects of this have already been alluded to earlier,
and these can be encapsulated in the notion of uniformity. This was literally
true concerning military dress, and nearly so for the modes of fighting
and the body movements of the soldiers, which were intended to become
programmed. Of course, regulations should not be mixed up with the
reality on the battlefield, but the impact of military drill should not be
underestimated either. Although the mercenaries of previous decades were
89 Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, pp. 2jit, zyif.
90 Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland des r6. undij.Jahrhunderts, pp. 145-150; Kapser,
Die bayerische Kriegsorganisation in der zweiten Halfte des Dreijiigjahrigen Krieges, pp. 250-261.
232
MICHAEL SIKORA
supposed to fight as a part of a homogeneous body of soldiers, the personal
drill created a new level of control and discipline.
In a broader sense, a similar argument can be advanced concerning the
relationship between soldiers and military commanders since the soldiers'
earlier options of self-determination and protest, though they should not
be overestimated, were weakened in favour of the total submission of the
soldiers to the disciplinary power of their drill masters, and to a military
justice run in the interests of the military commander. Even the fact of
peacetime service can be interpreted as a factor leading to greater uniform-
ity. Since the actions of mercenaries in the past had been exclusively linked
with the conduct of war, their image, for better or worse, was dominated by
the connotations of fighting and bravery, violence and cruelty, adventure
and misery. The peacetime members of a standing army were much more on
show and to a larger audience than before, but the public perceived them as
guardsmen, as puppets on the strings of commanders, and even as earning
money, employed not only as soldiers, but working with their own hands
in just the same way as many others in town worked. Having a night out
on the town with comrades and enjoying the ensuing debauchery seemed
to be the most singular aspects of a soldier's life, but social acceptance of
these activities depended largely on one's point of view.
This certainly must have had consequences for the conception of the
role of the soldiers. Recent research has done much to add to our under-
standing of the public perception and self-perception of the mercenaries
in their heyday in the sixteenth century, most prominently reflected and
certainly idealized in many printed woodcuts, but also documented in
clothes, songs, poems, plays, and (mostly very critical) treatises. 91 Comments
from non-soldiers mostly combined criticisms of their idleness, violence,
and immorality with a certain fascination, which seemingly fed into the
self-perception of mercenaries, thereby helping to enhance their status as
an order of outsiders, based on claims of a distinctive honour, autonomy,
and extravagance as well as on superiority and a disdain for civilian life.
Though extremely ambiguous, being a mercenary attracted a lot of attention
and promised, if not esteem, a kind of fearful respect.
No such claims can be asserted on behalf of the members of standing
armies. Most obviously, these soldiers were far less attractive for artists, at
least in the singular. The soldiers were mostly depicted as drilled puppets
or as uniformed masses. Though they were still the object of much moral
91 Huntebrinker, "Fromme Knechte" unci "Garteteufel", pp. 87-173; Rogg, Landsknechte unci
Reisldufer; Burschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschtand cles 76. undry.Jahrhunderts, pp. 27-38.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750
233
criticism, the most prominent attitude beyond this seems to have been pity,
due to the poor conditions of life and demeaning discipline. A few memoirs
reflect at best a kind of picaresque way of life, but no evidence for keeping
the former nimbus of extravagant, though intimidating adventures. 92
From an analytical perspective, the changes can probably best be con-
ceived as a quantum leap in professionalization. The possibility of lifelong
service, or at least continuous service uninterrupted by peacetime lay-offs,
as well as newly rigorous regulation, which should not only be interpreted in
the framework of military discipline, but also as a job description, compris-
ing both lists of duties and special skills, contributed to shaping a daily
working routine. Thus, the decline of public attention and attraction can
also be understood as an aspect of the soldiers' normalization and inte-
gration into civilian society. As a result, the mercenaries of the standing
armies achieved a much higher level of professional standards than former
mercenaries, who were already commonly perceived as professionals. In
partial contrast to this chapter's emphasis on some crucial continuities,
this reshaping of military service has also been taken as an argument to
evaluate these changes as a categorical transformation from "mercenary"
to "soldier". 93 In terms of soldiers' self-conception, the new standards left
space for adopting a kind of professional self-esteem; however, there is only a
little evidence for its real relevance. Towards the end of the century, military
authorities tried to encourage its emergence by praise and rewards. 94
General discussion: making a living
As outlined above, soldiers' incomes had lost much of their appeal. This is
of particular importance since the desire for personal gain is commonly
92 Some of the most cited sources of this kind include Braker, Lebensgeschichte undNatiirtiche
Ebentheuer desArmen Marines im Tockenburg;Seume,MeinLeben;Kerhr,Ausdemsiebenjahrigen
Krieg;F[riedrich] C[hristian] Laukhards,vorzeiten Magisters der Philosophie, undjetzt Musketiers.
93 See Burschel, "Krieg, Staat, Disziplin", based onBurschel, Soldner im Nordwestdeutschland
des 76. und ry.Jahrhunderts.
94 A public celebration to acclaim a Saxon non-commissioned officer for fifty years of service
is anonymously reported in "Schilderung einer Nationalscene", Bellona (1781), pp. 89-96. Some
memoirs can also be understood as an expression of a proud professional self-esteem, for exam-
ple, those of a former Prussian non-commissioned officer, who had served for fifty-two years:
see Leben und Thaten eines Preufiischen Regiments-Tambours. Certainly an extreme example,
but nevertheless striking, is Miiller, Der wohl exercirte Preufiische Soldat, a treatise by a former
Prussian musketeer who felt compelled to explain the principles of Prussian military training
to the public.
234
MICHAEL SIKORA
considered the exclusive motivation for mercenary service. Obviously,
service as a member of a standing army did not offer much prospect of
enrichment. Of course, in former times, the mercenaries' hope for wealth
through booty had been mostly unrealized. As was pointed out above, with
regard to material rewards, military service at least offered an alternative
option among other occupations at the lower end of the social pyramid. In
addition, when one considers the attractiveness of the signing-on bounty
and the longer term prospects, there is no reason to deny that the expec-
tation of a poor, but at least reliable livelihood may have swayed those
contemplating service. Such considerations weighed all the more heavily
when the soldier's comparatively stable existence is compared to the poor
conditions in rural villages, which were always threatened by the risks of
fluctuating crop yields. The desire for private gain was, then, most likely a
relevant factor in motivating soldiers.
Of course, it is impossible to gain a complete understanding of the
soldiers' motives; this is all the more true when dealing with less obvious
assumptions and with the question of whether the introduction of standing
armies offered new kinds of collective motivation. There are hints of the
importance of a certain esprit de corps, which was usually related not to
the army as a whole, but to the regiment. 95 Of course its effects could have
an impact only after recruitment. Certainly, the permanent existence of
the units strengthened these effects on a smaller scale by stabilizing peer
group structures and, on a larger scale, by grouping together icons of glory
and tradition and transforming them into a regimental memorial culture.
In fact, this kind of collective identity seems to have been supported by the
military authorities and, since it corresponded to the values of noble honour
and to the social logic of rank and reputation, it might have been the most
typical motivational factor. In a more general sense, it can be considered a
special mode of professional self-confidence.
In the light of a growing percentage of native soldiers, it seems reason-
able to assume that there was an increasing importance of some kind of
patriotism or loyalty to the ruler or at least a certain sense of duty. Prob-
ably, the Prussian system favoured the transfer of some provincial or even
local identity into the army by keeping Kantonisten from the same area
95 Nowosadtko, Stehendes Heer im Stdndestaat, pp. 90-97; Kroll, Soldaten im iS.Jahrhundert
zwischen Friedensalltag und Kriegserfahrung, pp. 205-220; Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion,
pp. 268-281.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 235
together. 96 However, since there is very little evidence on the thoughts of
ordinary soldiers, generalized assumptions about the motivation of soldiers
are rather speculative. 97 At the very least, it can be stated that there is no
evidence of widespread enthusiasm for military service or of systematic
efforts to appeal to the common people in terms of patriotic loyalty. This
became more prominent only in later eighteenth-century discourse, but
mostly as a debate among the elites. In summary, although the changing
framework of military service undoubtedly influenced soldiers' motives, it
is impossible to gain a reliable insight into these on a larger scale. Of course,
one has to expect a certain mix of motives, and probably the changing
composition of the armies caused an increasing variety thereof.
General discussion: military labour and state-building
Soldiers' motives, however, may be discussed on a broader horizon since
the establishment of standing armies formed one aspect of an even more
important process. From the perspective of state-building, standing armies
represented the crucial manifestation of state structures themselves. In
contrast, these structures definitely lacked the fully developed character
of state authority, as long as military power could be exercised by rather
autonomous commanders as Wallenstein or Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, who,
according to the work of Fritz Redlich, are usually designated as military
enterprisers, or by high-ranking nobles in France, making use of their own
kind of autonomy and independence. 98 However, this is not the place to
discuss similarities or differences between figures such as Wallenstein
and Conde. Regarding the military, the major challenge of state-building
was the integration of more or less autonomous military structures and the
marginalization of any form of opposing military organization. In fact, the
establishment of standing armies reflected the establishment of a monopoly
of violence.
96 King Frederick II once wrote in his political testament from 1768 that the Kantonsystem
would encourage rivalry between soldiers for a reputation for bravery and that friends and
relatives, fighting together, would not leave each other: Dietrich, Die politischen Testamente
der Hohenzollern, pp. 5i6f.
97 For some reflections on this subject, see Kroll, Soldaten im i8.Jahrhundert zwischen Frieden-
salltag und Kriegserfahrung, pp. 133-179; Sikora, Disziplin und Desertion, pp. 305-325.
98 Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle, pp. 284-286; Parrott, Richelieu's Army, pp. 313-365, sees a
strong contrast between military enterprisers and the French army, but also gives examples of
the crucial role of the high nobility and their networks.
236
MICHAEL SIKORA
Regarding the military organization itself, the contrast should not be
stressed too sharply. The military before 1650 was not a completely private
business. Normally, troops were raised at the level of the regiment by
licensed colonels, who had capital and networks at their disposal to fulfil
organizational work which, at that stage, could not be performed by the
ruler's administration. The licence, however, included, beyond basic regula-
tions, a commitment to the ruler as the only source of legitimate power."
Our concept of a military enterpriser would be misleading if military
business were to be perceived as totally independent from the framework
of legitimate power. The princes simply could not enforce total control. On
the other hand, even the structures of the standing armies still provided
a certain potential for independent economy, in German armies mostly
shifting from the level of regiments to the level of companies, forming the
so-called Kompaniewirtschaft. 100 Certainly, colonels and captains could no
longer act against the ruler, and most definitely had to act according to a
more detailed set of regulations, but the regiments and companies still
formed, if not autonomous, then self-contained units, combining training,
economy, justice, and command, which were all in the hands of the com-
manding officers. The regiments and the companies remained a source of
considerable income for them. Since all sums for paying, equipping, and
maintaining the soldiers went through their hands, based on fixed rates
paid by the government, the colonels and captains not only took their own
salaries but also benefited from the profits to be made from managing their
units, whether these were legal or illicit. 101 For example, probably the most
widely practised swindle was receiving money for soldiers who had never
existed or who had left the unit as a result of desertion or death.
With regard to the common soldiers, they suffered much more from the
intensified control, as a result of greater surveillance and military discipline,
which was discussed above and which can also be interpreted as the out-
come of state-building. Of course, as employees, the monopoly of violence
99 This has been recently stressed by Baumann, "Die deutschen Condottieri". In contrast
to warlords such as Wallenstein or Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar during the Thirty Years War,
one should also keep in mind the example of the very important Catholic general Johann
Tserclaes Count of Tilly, who acted with extraordinary loyalty to and trust in his sovereign,
Duke Maximilian of Bavaria: see Kaiser, Politik unci Kriegfiihrung, specifically pp. 16-23.
100 Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His WorkForce, pp. 77-88.
101 John Lynn calls the structures of the French army in the eighteenth century still a "semi-
entrepreneurial system"; see Lynn, Battle, pp. 137-139, 361. The term was originally coined by
David Parrott, who avoided using it in his recent works in order to stress the differences between
French practices and German military enterprisers.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 237
was less relevant for them than the monopoly of employment. However, it
is not certain whether they really profited from business competition in
former decades and, as already mentioned, competition for recruits still took
place in some regions and probably offered more opportunities for negotia-
tion than before. This resulted from supply and demand, not from the fact
that the recruiters were no longer enterprisers but government employees.
On the other hand, the increased effectiveness of ruling elites and military
organizations also resulted in a suspension of the market mechanisms
through forced recruitment, as a result of which many impressed soldiers
paid a very one-sided, existential price by suffering not only from coercion,
but also from war injuries and death. Obviously, the high authorities were
less engaged in disciplining such recruiting methods. Therefore, for the
soldiers, the changes deriving from the increasing control over the military
commanders seem to have been of less importance.
As a result, most observations suggest considering the changes as more
gradual than categorical. Summed up, however, the gradual changes resulted
in a framework of military service which was substantially different from the
preceding period, though mostly based on the same principles. As a common
denominator, inevitably rather general and superficial, the different levels of
change might be conceptualized as aspects of an ongoing institutionaliza-
tion and integration of the military as a whole within the framework of
state-building. From this perspective, the reduced autonomy of the military
commanders and their incorporation in the corps of public servants can be
paralleled to the intensified disciplining and uniforming of the common
soldiers and their location in the everyday life of the garrison cities.
Despite all the continuities, developments around the establishment
of standing armies marked a crucial phase in European military history.
Although drill practice had been invented several decades earlier, its imple-
mentation as a common European feature created an outstanding attribute
of modern military organizations as a whole. Obviously, military obligations
imposed on the subjects became increasingly significant, although they had
not yet became dominant and still served only subsidiary purposes, mostly
to avoid the costs of recruitment. Nonetheless, these practices prepared the
way for the development of the draft and seem to characterize this period as
a stage of transition in which different principles were combined. However,
instead of reducing this era to a prelude not yet determined, it might be
more adequate to perceive it as the unfolding of options in the course of
emerging state power. Not surprisingly, the reasons and motives for this
dynamic process have attracted much scholarly attention. The debate was
238
MICHAEL SIKORA
significantly shaped by Michael Roberts's concept of a "military revolution". 10Z
This is not the place to either sum up the whole controversial debate or to
reinvent the answers. Some aspects of the debate, however, will help to put
the changes in an evolutionary context.
According to the original concept, the military revolution was completed
just before the spread of standing armies, but these were still perceived as
an outcome of the revolution, flanked by the strengthening and centraliza-
tion of political power to provide the required resources. The roots of this
process were traced back to the tactical reforms at the end of the sixteenth
century. The main thesis, therefore, was aimed at the assumption that not
only military changes, but also major social and political developments,
were initiated by genuine military innovations. These started with a new
tactic and in addition were fuelled by the new scale of strategic warfare
during the Thirty Years War, characterized by long-range campaigns and
the need for numerous occupational forces. This should have resulted in
the need for more soldiers.
One may object that the main example, the campaigns of Gustav Adolf,
were noteworthy due to the constraints, from the Swedish perspective,
of a quasi-overseas theatre of war, and that subsequent wars did not see
comparable strategic efforts. On a more general level, it has to be considered
that the appetite for a growing number of soldiers may have been motivated
by even simpler arguments: since technological means were rather limited
in their impact, military superiority normally was achieved by larger armies.
From this point of view, the more crucial change must be considered the
previous replacement of feudal armies by mercenary armies, the expansion
of which was only limited by the need for money, while feudal structures
had restricted at least the core of military power to the limited number
of more or less obstinate nobles. The further development seems to have
been mostly, although certainly not solely, dependent on the government's
increasing possibility to absorb resources.
Certainly, the Dutch reforms implemented an important additional
aspect. Originally introduced to compensate for the numerical inferiority
of the Dutch forces, the result of the reforms turned out to be a significant
102 Roberts, The Military Revolution, 7560-1660; since then, the concept of a "military revolution"
has been firmly established in academic curricula, but has also been widely and critically
discussed and, on the other hand, expanded to other periods and to other parts of the world, so
that it has rather lost its significance. Classical critics include Parker, The Military Revolution,
and Black, A Military Revolution? See now Black, Beyond the Military Revolution. Other recent
publications referring to the catchword include Knox and Murray, The Dynamics of Military
Revolution, 1300-2050, and Nimwegen, The Dutch Army and the Military Revolutions 1588-1688.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750 239
increase in military effectiveness. After this time, the value of soldiers
could be measured not only by their number, but also by the quality of
their training. Therefore, preparing the military forces before the start
of war became an inevitable prerequisite for military effectiveness and
consequently resulted in standing armies. Even then, sheer superiority of
numbers did not ensure success on the battlefield, as the remarkable victory
of inferior forces, such as the Prussians' at the battle of Leuthen in 1757,
indicates. 103 However, such instances did not encourage the king of Prussia
or other rulers to reduce their forces by replacing quantity with quality.
A short remark must support the assertion that technological innova-
tion was of less importance, since the seventeenth century saw two major
changes. This was the replacement of matchlock guns with flintlock guns,
which were easier to handle, and the total abandonment of pikes in favour of
the exclusive use of guns, which could be adapted to hand-to-hand combat
by the use of the newly invented bayonet. Certainly, the disappearance of
the pike marked a watershed of great symbolic meaning since it represented
the triumph of gunpowder weapons. This story, however, covers at least two
centuries, step by step, and was not completed until the beginning of the
eighteenth century. 104 It is noteworthy that, during the eighteenth century
bayonet attacks - thus the use of the reduced, but much more manageable
version of pikes - in fact could become decisive on the battlefield. 105 Though
it was accompanied by tactical changes, the final abandonment of pikes
did not indicate a technological revolution, nor does it offer explanations
for the arms race at the end of the seventeenth century.
This seems also to be true in regard to the growing importance of the
artillery in the eighteenth century. Due to technological changes, which
made cannons more mobile on the battlefield, and the corresponding tacti-
cal changes, the artillery's role was subsequently transformed from a merely
subsidiary one to having a crucial, though not yet decisive, importance of
its own. 106 Although the intensified use of artillery caused considerable losses
and suffering, it still did not modify the efforts to produce the highest pos-
sible number of soldiers nor did it affect the basic structural characteristics
of military service.
103 As a sceptical approach to a rather mystifying event, see Kroener, "Die Geburt eines Mythos
- die 'schiefe Schlachtordnung'".
104 See, among others, Black, European Warfare 1660-1875, p. 39; Luh, Ancien Regime Warfare
and the Military Revolution, p. 139.
105 Luh, Ancien Regime Warfare and the Military Revolution, pp. 156-160.
106 Ibid., pp. 167-178.
240
MICHAEL SIKORA
The essential precondition for the quantum leap in army strength was the
strengthening of centralized political power and intensified accumulation
of resources. The military development reflected, and was closely connected
to, a restructuring of governance, pushed forward by the experiences and
the results of the Thirty Years War, including a new framework for state
rivalry In different ways, at different moments, and with different degrees
of success, but focused on a few decades, rulers profited from the defeat of
their enemies, the breaking of opposition, the weakening of participatory
elites, the establishment of consensual policies in favour of external compe-
tition, and, last but not least, the amelioration of confessional antagonisms.
In this sense, it has been suggested that the Thirty Years War enjoys real
significance as a state-building war. 107
The stabilization of internal hierarchies and administrative structures
enabled governments to draw conclusions from the rather improvised
handling of warfare during the war, including military strength, tactical
innovations, control and efficiency of the military, and discipline of the
common soldier - all the aspects discussed above. The ongoing conflicts
over hegemony on the continent, the Baltic, and the Balkans compelled
all participants to reach comparable levels of operational readiness and
accelerated the spread of standing armies. Therefore, they represented both
the slowdown of internal rivalries and a certain acceleration of external
rivalries. The spending of most resources on the needs of the military
pushed the soldiers into the centre of this process. In fact, one may assert
that they were the most intensively governed section of the population. It is
no wonder that they also became a symbolic medium to express the ruler's
power and sovereignty (and in a certain sense, condensed in parades and
guards of honour, they have kept this meaning until today). The quality of
change in terms of the political framework can be paralleled, in some way, to
the changes in military organization as an essential part of this framework.
However, although the institutionalization of governmental power
reached new heights of efficiency and stability, some basic elements stayed
the same. The revolution had not yet arrived. Most people were still governed
107 This point mainly follows the arguments of Black, A Military Revolution?, pp. 67-77, including
aspects of changes in the sphere of political constitution and the socio-political role of the
elites. In this wide sense, the category of state-building wars was elaborated by Burkhardt,
Der Dreijiigjahrige Krieg, in nuce on p. 27. This perspective also touches on the debate on the
fiscal-military state, which was brought up by Brewer, The Sinews of Power. See also Storrs, The
Fiscal-Military State in Eighteenth Century Europe, and Glete, War and the State in Early Modern
Europe; however, the complexities of this approach cannot be discussed and included at this
point.
CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN MERCENARY ARMIES: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1650-1750
241
by dynasties from the high nobility whose attitudes towards the military
forces were not substantially different from those of former monarchs. The
augmentation of army strength and the extension of compulsory service
resulted from the intensified power of governments to intervene in their
citizens' lives and was not paralleled by a newly defined and founded
relationship between subjects and state.
Therefore, it remained a maxim of ruling and of warfare that the soldier's
role was still a functional one based on payment and force. There was a
closely connected political implication, namely that these armies were at
the disposal of monarchs and ministers, instruments of their ambitions and
interests, and deployed within the context of cabinet warfare. To continue
the metaphorical framework, the soldiers served as hired or forced construc-
tion workers in the building of the state, at best being inhabitants without
rights; they were in no way co-proprietors.
Peasants fighting for a living in early
modern North India
DirkH.A.Kolff
It is several years since historians have abandoned the idea of medieval
and early modern India as a huge but static collection of economically self-
sufficient and politically autonomous village units. With respect to large parts
of India, another image has taken its place, that of a dual world, composed
on the one hand of a sedentarized segment of settled, rain-fed agriculture
and, on the other, one of mobile pastoralism in the arid half of the Indian
subcontinent. The frontier between these worlds ran right across the sub-
continent, though, rather than one frontier, the phenomenon consisted of
a complex set of frontiers, frontier zones, and dynamic "inner frontiers" of
exchange, intrusion, and negotiation linking and holding together vast regions
bordering on them. In accepting this model, it should be noted that, on the
one hand, cattle-based economies never existed independently from town
and village markets, while, on the other hand, the political management of
settled agriculture could not do without alliances with, or appeasement and
employment of, pastoral warriors. On a more local level, village management
often depended on either an annual exodus of seasonal labour and herders to
grazing grounds during the post-harvest season or the engagement of mobile
frontier manpower from outside during the busiest months of the year. Mobile
labour, therefore, did not generally lack an agrarian base of some sort; neither
were villagers unacquainted with faraway service, whether as weavers, herd-
ers, soldiers, or agricultural labourers. Also, a village's temporary diaspora
would, if it appeared attractive to do so, lead to entire families settling down
permanently in regions near or far. Landed communities would welcome
in their midst families of relative strangers with their ploughs (a term for
a pair of bullocks) from either the pastoral or the sedentarized worlds and
integrate them in their systems of exchange of produce and division of labour.
Military entrepreneurship by warlords often led to agrarian management
rights in a number of villages (watari), mostly in or near their home region,
being granted to them and their fighting men. More often than not, in one
244
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
way or another, soldiering was an activity directly or indirectly supportive of
agrarian pursuits. 1
This is especially the case in northern India, the part of the subconti-
nent to which my contribution restricts itself, just as the essay by Robert
Johnson focuses on southern India. For North India, it makes sense to
think in terms of a market for diasporic or mobile labour as an almost
autonomous phenomenon kept in existence by the dynamics of the frontier
that linked the worlds of extensive agriculture and pastoralism, and by the
demographic cycles in non-capitalist village economies primarily focusing
on production for home consumption.* That labour market, as well as the
ecological exchanges of produce and animal husbandry, played a crucial
role in the survival strategies of peasants and cattle farmers, always looking
for secure labour conditions under circumstances of unpredictable harvests
or supplies of food. It had a major impact on the formation of patronage
networks and political entrepreneurship or "states" at the regional and
local levels. The migratory and frontier cultures of India's villages and
regions constitute the great machine of much of the subcontinent's social
history. Neither can its political history be fully understood without taking
account of its dynamics. Every year, people would look for new niches in
the labour markets within their migratory reach on both sides of the divide
between agriculture and cattle farming, thus causing the cogwheels of the
great frontier machine to change gear according to seasonal patterns. The
intensity of the process varied at different times and in different places. Its
professional categories - agricultural, industrial, commercial, or military -
were not closed compartments. Weavers could turn into peasants and vice
versa; both professions required a degree of mobility and, therefore, training
in the use of arms. Military labour could be seasonal and dependent on a
surplus or deficiency of farm hands at home. Yet, many men spent decades
as professional soldiers, most of them never giving up hope of one day
returning home to their fields or acquiring an agrarian living. To keep such
options open and thus to be able to continue contributing to the economy
of one's home villages or clan area formed an essential part of a migrant's
culture of survival.
When considering how, in pre-modern Indian history, states and regional
identities were "forged", the issue of the management of internal frontiers
and labour markets, including the military labour market, will always be
1 Gommans, Mughal Warfare; for a map of the major ecological frontiers see, p. n. On the
centrality of watan, see Gordon, "Symbolic and Structural Constraints".
2 See for such economies Thorner et at, A.V. Chayanov on the Theory of Peasant Economy.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
245
at the centre of the analysis. Taking as his point of departure the agrarian/
pastoralist order of India, Jos Gommans has turned on its head, as it were,
our understanding of the geo-political, ecological, and human-resource
basis of the Mogul empire. Similarly, in a brilliant recent book on medieval
Gujarat, Samira Sheikh has shown the explanatory force of a focus on the
"continually contested relationship" between the arid, largely pastoralist
Saurashtra peninsula and the fertile agricultural and trading plains of the
eastern mainland. 3
So, regional and central state-formation in India was to a large extent
(though perhaps less so e.g. in Bengal) an effort to establish control over
the dynamics engendered by the subcontinent's climatic and ecological
frontiers. Yet, historical experience seems to prove that this regionally
segmented military labour market could not in itself serve as a decisive base
for the creation of a larger empire. In his contribution to our project, Kaushik
Roy shows that, when such empires nonetheless came into being, the initial
impulse often came from outside the world of peasant and regionally based
soldiering. During the two periods of Indian empire-building that fall within
our time scheme, i.e. those of the Moguls and the British, India's pattern
of peasant soldiering - i.e. its main market for military labour - though
remaining intact, fulfilled very different functions. Under the Moguls, it
was temporarily suppressed and lost its prominence to non-Indian, mostly
tribal professionals. This explains why, for too long, as Stewart Gordon has
argued, historians focused on the empire's mansabdari (service nobility)
system, thus neglecting "the ordinary, ongoing processes of military service
in India", which often were village-based or predicated on regionally rooted
labour markets. 4 The vitality of these processes was clear again, when,
after a very gradual re-emergence during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the British, though thoroughly reorganizing it, embraced its
tradition of professional service and built their Indian empire on it.
In the course of the sixteenth century, the military system of the imperial
Moguls was, as it were, superimposed on this tradition by the Central Asian
conqueror Babur (in Delhi 1526-1530) and his grandson Akbar (effectively
1568-1605). The core of this system consisted of the descendants of the old
Turkic and Mongol nomadic warriors from the deep steppe who were born
3 Gommans, Mughal Warfare; Sheikh, Forging a Region, p. 19. An example of an even smaller-
scale frontier is that between the khadar flood-prone lowlands and the bangar uplands of the
Upper (Ganga-Yamuna) Doab, the management of which formed the basis of the eighteenth-
century Gujar states in the area. See Kolff, Grass in Their Mouths, pp. 471-477.
4 Gordon, "Symbolic and Structural Constraints", p. 159.
246
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
and raised as horse-breeders, and trained from early childhood as mounted
archers and raiders in Central Asia. 5 Provided they were accompanied by
cannon, musketry, and heavy cavalry, this arm of light cavalry with their
composite bows fired from the saddle and their stunningly swift horseman-
ship was irresistible on the battlefields of North India and indispensable
for those striving for empire at the time. 6
Demography, technology, and invasion, in short, were the main deter-
minants of the role of military labour in post-1500 India. The vicissitudes of
empire continued to have a bearing on the character and military impact
of frontier-based peasant recruitment and service. During the sixteenth
century, mounted archers still contributed in a decisive manner to the
conquests of the Moguls in North India. With more success than some of
his predecessors, Akbar overlaid this system on the tradition of peasant
soldiering of Hindustan, the central part of the great alluvial plain of North
India. My essay focuses on this tradition and I will try to show how, under
different guises, it remained a constant force in medieval and early modern
Indian history. Its dynamics continued to an important degree to be fed
by the survival strategies of a peasantry that was compelled to contend
with the exceptional vagaries of the monsoon as it manifests itself north
of the Tropic of Cancer. As always, peasants responded to the insecurity
of harvests by investing in non-agricultural pursuits such as soldiering.
This kind of soldiering was, in other words, a voluntary one, energized in a
bottom-up manner by a demand for a source of non-agrarian income that
would spread one's risks and underpin an economy based on inherently un-
stable family farms. In a characteristically Indian way, the entrepreneurship
of brokers who were in a position to negotiate deals with distant warlords
and thrones, whether they were clan leaders or independently operating
jobber-commanders, so-called jamadars, was crucial in the process. 7
The Mogul system, therefore, was a complex one. It was, moreover, not an
unchanging one, if only because the Indian enemies of the empire adopted
some of its techniques, even mounted archery, though a less thoroughly
trained version of it, and found answers to the challenges it posed. Mean-
while, the supply of accomplished archers from the Central Asian steppes
came almost to a halt. Other weapons came to the fore. During the sixteenth
5 On the technique of horse and bow and their effect in battle, see Hildinger, Warriors of the
Steppe, pp. 15-32; on the coherence of the Mongol system, see May, The Mongol Art of War.
6 For Mogul military superiority in India, see Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire,
pp. 51-69.
7 The jamadars can be seen as performing the characteristically India function of dalali, the
Indian term for brokerage in its widest sense.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
247
century, Mogul artillery arsenals developed and grew. The fighting reputa-
tion of musketeers improved as the accuracy of their fire increased; they
became a valuable tool in the hands of the central state. Already under
Akbar, attempts were made to keep expert units of foot-musketeers under
strict central control and keep them away from the nobles. Then, gradually,
the broad-based North Indian military labour market - its demographic
resources so much richer than those of the steppes - reasserted itself and
re-emerged as a vital resource of the state, even of the empire. During
Jahangir's reign (1605-1627) Hindustani peasant infantry became strikingly
visible again in the sources.
At that time, those available for longer or shorter periods for employ-
ment as foot-soldiers in the military labour markets of the subcontinent,
whether all-India, regional or local, cannot have represented less than 10
per cent of the adult male population. It was clear that the empire would
not have the means to employ a sufficient number of these units and to
disarm the rest. 8 Crucial in this respect was the increasing dissemination
of the comparatively affordable matchlock among groups of professional
foot-archers and many other communities of armed peasants. This phenom-
enon could not but weaken imperial control over North India, especially
in the central part of it, Hindustan. Though men armed with swords and
shields successfully continued to offer themselves for hire, many villagers
equipped themselves with firearms, resulting in a newly vibrant labour
market for peasantry-based infantry. The empire never found an answer to
the challenges it posed. It has been suggested that the segmentary nature
of Mogul military organization and its policy of delegating authority to
employer-noblemen called mansabdars, hampered the "formation of a
kind of army in which arms of musketeers and artillery were given their
due", and that a large-scale adoption of the flintlock - which could not, as
the matchlock was, be manufactured by village blacksmiths - would have
been possible only when the empire itself had taken up the production of
superior firearms. Technology, however, stagnated, while attempts by the
Mogul court to prevent local blacksmiths from making muskets were late
and failed. 9 The massive presence of firearms in the villages turned the
8 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, p. 3.
9 M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility Under Aurangzeb, rev. edn (Delhi, 1997), p. xx, cited
by Khan, Gunpowder and Firearms, p. 155. On the importance of the "segmented structure
of political control which favoured military units which, in terms of command and control,
approximated to war bands rather than to a disciplined army" in India, see Wickremesekera,
"Best Black Troops in the World", p. 34.
248
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
agrarian crises of the second half of the seventeenth century into as many
explosive challenges to the empire.
So, as after the reign of Akbar, matchlocks spread in the countryside, and
the conditions for the development of an imperial army equipped with flint-
locks and cast-iron cannon, which would have kept the Moguls in control,
remained unfulfilled. It was only during the second half of the eighteenth
century that several of the Indian regional rulers established foundries
capable of producing cast-iron guns. Some also began using flintlocks
and hired European officers to command battalions thus equipped and
trained, a development that has been said to represent an "Indian military
revolution". 10 But, as Iqtidar Alam Khan writes, it was not enough: "in the
absence of a concerted drive to modernize the entire army organization",
it did not prevent the formation, by another outsider, the British East India
Company, of another Indian empire. This new empire, however, unlike the
Mogul one, was predominantly based on the indigenous agrarian labour
market of North India and on the Company's drive towards a degree of
organization, technological advance, and discipline that the Moguls had
not been able to achieve. 11
Long before the British conquests, therefore, military initiative had
shifted from the Mogul mansabdars to patrons, political entrepreneurs,
and jobber-commanders with close and efficient links to the supplies of
peasant labour in the central provinces of the empire. In due course, the
crucial brokerage and recruitment of peasant soldiers from the core region
of Hindustan, which had, in a number of cases, been handled by clan leaders
with both local roots and strong links with the emperor, came into the
hands of numberless independently operating jobbers (jamadars) with
strong local links and great freedom of negotiating their terms of service.
The increasing monetization of the economy may have had a certain role
in the process, though the circulation of silver was already significant in
Akbar's time.
Especially in Hindustan, the demographic factor of the dynamics and the
almost limitless supply of armed peasants, as demonstrated in a frightening
manner by the late sixteenth-century military census ordered by Akbar,
had a decisive role in the slow loss of grip and initiative of the Moguls. But
not only there. Further south, in Malwa and in Deccan, in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, as Gordon has shown, village and regionally based
10 Wickremesekera, "Best Black Troops in the World", p. 66.
n For the ideas set out in the preceding three paragraphs, see especially Khan, Gunpowder
and Firearms, pp. 143-199.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
249
troops of cavalry in search of patronage, watan, and pay represented a fight-
ing tradition that similarly continued as a high-prestige, high-pay branch
of military service, entirely independent of the Mogul and Turkic cavalry
tradition. The case proves abundantly that by no means all agrarian-based
military service took the form of foot-soldiering. 12 Even in North India,
this was not the case. Yet, in this essay, partly because it will allow me to
carry the story into the British period, I will stick to North India and, more
specifically, to the example of Hindustani infantrymen.
Families rooted in (semi-)pastoral India, like nomads elsewhere, were, as
noted, compelled to adopt flexible survival strategies. Baluchi cameleers, for
instance, found employment as armed guards with caravan leaders on the
main Gujarat-to-Hindustan routes. Many of them were archers, although
some had swords and acquired firearms at an early stage. One seventeenth-
century European observer found them an unruly lot and warned against
engaging Baluchis and Jats simultaneously as one's protectors, as they would
tend to attack each other instead of working together. Another found that in
the Gujarati diaspora and towards Agra there were many honest men among
them. For travellers, they were essential. They cost 3.5 rupees a month;
their leaders, styled muqaddam (a term also used for village leaders) or
mirdah, received 4 rupees and travelled with their men. Not only did they
conduct caravans: between Gujarat and Hindustan, almost anyjourney was
inconceivable without them. Bands of them were easily hired in towns or
qasbas (market towns) along the road. There they had labour agents who
answered for their honesty and received 1 rupee for each contracted man. As
others with pastoralist origins did, many of them joined the regional military
labour market of Gujarat under the denomination of qasbatis (townsmen)
and, it appears, acquired some land. The Mirdt-i Ahmadi says about their
activities in the service of the province of Gujarat in the eighteenth century:
They attacked villages, drove away cattle, escorted Mughal officials,
took responsibility of collecting tribute from landholders on a small
salary, they got enlisted as recruits in the army for a few days, served
the chiefs and inspectors of the district police.
Generally reluctant to serve outside Gujarat, some of them nevertheless
tried their luck in other provinces and "made bravery their profession". 13
Direct employment by the empire could lead to the grant of land, even
12 Gordon, "Symbolic and Structural Constraints".
13 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 4-6.
250
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
of entire villages. Aurangzeb, for instance, gave nine villages in the old
Saharanpur district north of Delhi to a number of such Baluchis on the
condition that they exterminate the numerous highway robbers in that
part of the country. This made sense. Safety on the roads had all alongbeen
their speciality. Here, in Saharanpur, they remained powerful throughout
the eighteenth century and, when the East India Company took over the
Upper Doab from the Marathas, the land revenue of the villages concerned
was settled with the Baluchi chiefs. 14 The pattern was a common one. Clans
must, writes Sheikh, often be seen "in terms of their changing occupations".
"Groups that entered Gujarat as pastoralists could settle down to become
cultivators while small bands of forest-dwelling cultivators could achieve
military successes and become chieftains." 15
The above case of the Baluchis, who, apparently, offered their labour
in a purely free and commodified form, may serve as an example of the
social and spatial mobility that was typical of North India in the early
modern period and in which the military labour market played such a
dynamic role. The military entrepreneurship of the Baluchis - who turned
into travel guards, then town-based fighters, regional and imperial profes-
sional soldiers, landowners-cum-policemen, and finally village managers
in British-ruled India - is just an illustration of the kind of flexible oc-
cupational genealogy Sheikh draws attention to. It is important to note
that, as the quote from the Mirdt-iAhmadi showed, the military culture of
these groups of men was always one of negotiation and of keeping several
options for economic survival open. This attribute would, over the centuries,
remain a distinguishing feature of the political culture of North India,
where, more than in western Europe, the climate, i.e. the monsoon, was
fickle and harvests unpredictable. One hesitates, however, to label these
pastoralists looking for watan, on the basis of their continuous search for
the best terms of service and employment, as "mercenaries", which is a term
that seems to have little meaning before the age of nationalist politics and
the love of a "fatherland".
There were, especially in the world of settled agriculture, many instances
in which peasants, though as skilled in the use of arms as most life-long
soldiers and, therefore, fit to move and enter the all-India labour market,
were never under the necessity to leave home for long periods or fight over
other than local issues. Local issues there were many. It was impossible
14 F.C. Smith, Mag. Saharanpur, to Sadr Nizamat Adalat, 4.3.1824; Bengal Criminal Judicial
Proceedings, Western Provinces, 13.10.1825 no. 13, reply paras 569-594.
15 Sheikh, Forging a Region, p. 104.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
251
to retain the respect of and to keep going the negotiations with armed
travellers, hostile neighbours, or the representatives of government itself
without a readiness to risk armed conflict. When, in 1717, a Dutch East
India Company caravan was attacked in Malwa by 2,000 people armed with
muskets and 3,000 others, the Dutch merchant in charge described these
men as "peasants". Soldiers employed by traders often plundered along the
way. In this case, it seems, the suffering villagers responded to such acts of
violence by staging a looting counter-offensive of their own. In 1632, men
working the fields near Kanpur in Hindustan did so with their guns, swords,
and shields lying nearby, because they were at variance with the people of
a town half a mile away. And around 1650 in the nearby Agra area, where
every village had a small fort, semi-rebellion was endemic. The ploughmen
kept a musket slung on their back and a powder pouch at their waist. It was
the heyday of empire. Yet, the landowners never paid revenue without a
fight. Their strong negotiating position vis-a-vis the local governor enabled
them to have the relief loans (taqavi) they received from him after a bad
harvest converted into supplies of lead and gunpowder. But even without
the threatening presence of hostile outsiders, carefully measured dosages
of violence were a necessary part of agrarian management. Armed gangs of
rural stakeholders were a phenomenon inseparable from the country scene.
The martial skills of these men were essential survival tools, however,
in other than strictly local circumstances. In combination with forms of
small-scale migration, the use of force was often an integral part of the an-
nual agrarian cycle. Seasonal soldiering or looting enabled quite a number
of people in town and countryside to survive the slack agricultural season.
In August 1636, soon after the onset of the monsoon, partly because the
rains made the roads impassable, plundering ceased on the roads of Gujarat;
the peasants returned to their fields. Similarly, the weavers of the town of
Baroda in the 1620s, who were generally at home during the rainy season,
went to serve in the provincial army in the dry months of the year. In times
of dearth or famine, this occupational and spatial mobility of labour was the
rule rather than the exception and must have saved many lives. No doubt,
most of these men were fit to enter the regional or all-India military labour
markets. Yet only a limited number of them did so. 16
More often than not, rather than offering their services to one of the
states in their region, they confronted them. It is striking how frequently
we hear of village soldiers attacking state soldiers. Whenever the risks
16 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 4f£, 16. For some more examples, see Khan, Gunpowder
and Firearms, pp. 178-180.
252
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
seemed worth taking, peasants resisted and fell on intruders who, from
their point of view, were mere mercenaries, though perhaps they had an
agrarian base somewhere far away just as they themselves had one nearby.
They attacked army units campaigning far from their barracks, and fugitive
soldiers making their way from a battlefield. In the latter case, great loot
often fell into the villagers' hands. Thus, in the early sixteenth century, the
great Rana Sanga's camp was once plundered by villagers in the Agra area.
And after Sultan Khusru, Akbar's son, had been defeated in the Punjab in
1606, peasants killed most of the leaderless soldiers they could lay their
hands on and captured all the prince's horses, camels, and other animals.
There are examples of villagers closing their market to units of the imperial
army or defending local merchants badly treated by their governor. The
sources mention dozens of such instances. On a battlefield, peasants could
even be a significant factor without being recruited by either side. During
his years in India early in the nineteenth century, Arthur Wellesley had
learned that, if you moved after your enemy with "celerity" and sufficiently
distressed him, armed peasants could help you a great deal. "Whenever the
largest and most formidable bodies of [freebooters] are hard pressed by our
troops, the village people attack them upon their rear and flanks, cut off
stragglers, and will not allow a man to enter their villages." 17
In principle, of course, these men were martial and mobile enough
to make fighting their entire living. During Akbar's siege of Chittor in
Rajasthan in 1568, the fort was defended, Abu'l Fazl says, by 8,000 Rajput
warriors and some 40,000 peasants who showed "great zeal and activity".
This widespread participation in the resistance against Akbar's aggression
made him, according to the same source, decide to have nearly 30,000 of
the defenders killed on the day the fortress fell, which he would not have
done, one assumes, if he had thought them a negligible military presence. 18
These people were fit for service almost everywhere. When the rains and
harvests failed, in cases of flood or unbearable devastations of war, many
would leave their homes and look for work, whether weaving, ploughing,
or military, wherever there was food and a demand for their services. In
more or less normal years, on the other hand, the range of mobility of the
sedentarized part of the people remained limited in practice, even though
some of the young men, hearing of great prizes being won by others in
faraway lands, felt a pull to leave and try their luck. For most of them,
17 James, Wellington at War 1794-1815, p. 103.
18 See Kolff, "Chittor".
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
253
however, the issue of whether to serve any other leaders than their own
local or regional clansmen did not arise. Why was this so?
The reason was that without intermediary agency most armed peasants
had no access to military service at the level of the great regional states
or at that of the empire. And successful agency was rare. The survival
strategies of the state - whether that of the Moguls, their rivals, or their
predecessors - and that of the peasantries seemed mutually antagonistic.
Confrontation was the rule. There are instances where that confrontation
induced a kind of migration or diaspora of its own. In Hindustan, the great
fertile region between the Punjab and Bengal dominated by the rivers Ganga
and Yamuna that constituted the core of the market for peasant military
labour in India, the encounter of the peasantry and the state exacerbated
during the 1620s and 1630s and led to regular enslavement, deportation, and
extermination. It is reported that Abdullah Khan Firuz Jang, then in charge
of the Kalpi-Kanauj region, defeated all the hitherto unsubdued Chauhan
rajas and rebels there, had the leaders beheaded, and the peasants' wives,
daughters, and children, some 200,000 of them, transported to Iran and sold
there. Abdullah Khan himself boasted he had sold half a million women and
men. Large numbers of them, also from other areas, were deported across
the Indus, while Afghans were forced, though not as slaves, to move in the
other direction to the plains. Certainly, Abdullah Khan was more given to
tyrannical methods of pacification than most of his contemporaries. But
the spirit of resistance to taxation of many peasant communities in the
strategic or core areas of state-building convinced not a few rulers that
only desperately stern measures would work. Another aspect of this is the
urgent demand for peasants and artisans in Iran and Central Asia, where
many of those deported by the state must have been employed, as were
the 120 slaves - tillers of grain, diggers of canals for irrigation, bronze and
metal workers, a potter, a cook, a tinker, and a bowl maker, "fathers, sons
and grandsons [...] all Hindustanis", who were employed on an estate near
Bukhara towards the end of the fifteenth century. 19
Such attempts to smother the martial energies of semi-pastoral agrar-
ian Hindustan could give only temporary relief to the imperial rulers of
the alluvial plains. If the Mogul empire was aiming to transform itself
according to "early modern" military-fiscalist principles, which it did to
an extent, the systematic deportation of potential taxpayers would have
been an irrational policy. But any other attempt at actually disarming the
19 Chekhovich, Samarkandskie dokumenti, XV-XVIvv, pp. 172, 233-234; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput
& Sepoy, pp. i2ff.
254
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
countryside would, as we saw, be equally impractical. Only the British
Company would, in the 1798 to 1818 period, achieve something approaching
the demilitarization, though not the disarmament, of its Indian territories.
The Mogul empire, in other words, never adequately overcame the problem
of its being faced not with just recalcitrant individual landholders, but also
with armed peasantries that represented the backbone of society and could
not be destroyed without dire consequences to the agrarian productivity
on which the regime depended for its survival.
Another course open to state-builders was to selectively seek alliances in
the evolving world of pastoralist warlords and to invite to military service
some of the migrant bands of warriors in search of patronage and marriage
such as were always active on the borders of settled agriculture. 20 In return
for local revenues they could be entrusted with the pacification of turbulent
territory, so that, if successful, they would have the choice of opting for a
sedentary way of life. A provincial Mogul force, sent against uncooperative
taxpayers in Gujarat in 1684, included "a numberless multitude of men of
the country, consisting of Grasiyas and Kolis, who are tillers of the soil but
follow the army by command in exchange for freedom of tribute; as they
receive nothing for food, they keep themselves going mostly by theft". To
the state, the local knowledge of such men was valuable; they were also
cheap. But their looting for a living could do more harm than good. They
certainly partook of the quality that marginal people generally have from
a military point of view: semi-pastoralist robbers and men from the hills
and forests make excellent skirmishers against similar types of fighters.
Though alliances with such groups were part of one of the central aspects
of state formation, namely the effort to establish control over the dynamics
of the major ecological frontiers, these men might not easily be turned into
units sufficiently dependable for use on a major battlefield. Nonetheless,
such men were often enlisted and proved useful.
As hinted at, there were yet other strategies open to men who aspired
to build an early modern territorial polity. There was indeed no way the
Mogul government could do without the help of Indian chiefs and patrons,
especially those with access to units of peasant fighters. It was crucially
important to find the right agency that enabled the recruitment as infantry
from the peasantries of a significant and well-selected number of those one
could not otherwise control. This policy was successful to an extent. Before
and during the late seventeenth-century "agrarian crisis" of North India
that would to a large extent be induced by increasing state oppression and
20 Ziegler, "Marvari Historical Chronicles".
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
255
agrarian overtaxation and would, in Irfan Habib's words, render the Mogul
dynasty, at least partly, "its own grave-digger", the empire co-opted some
of the best managed resources of the armed peasantry. 21
From early on, an important role was played in Mogul armies by semi-
migratory professional peasant soldiers, often under the command of their
own zamindars (agrarian territorial managers). 22 Akbar's famous military
census of the realm dating from the 1590s resulted in the registration of a
staggering 4 million armed zamindars' foot-soldiers. This inventory of North
India's military labour market betrays the empire's uneasy awareness of the
impossibility of controlling its peasants or employing more than a fraction
of them. 23 The phenomenon of a state aspiring to a monopoly over the instru-
ments of coercion on its territory is foreign to Indian history. The negotiating
position of some of the leaders of these village-based infantrymen was
generally far stronger than that of their contemporaries in Europe. The
imperial officers were not entirely free to recruit whom they wished. Many
in the end were employed thanks to the crucial agency of lineage leaders
and, later, a category of men called jamadars: men to whom the common
soldier was far more loyal than to the states that had contracted him.
Let me elaborate on this theme with respect to the most striking example
of it that can be found, the recruitment history of the Avadhi- and Bhojpuri-
(Hindi dialects) speaking part of Hindustan (now eastern Uttar Pradesh and
western Bihar), a little to the east of the part of North India where Abdullah
Khan performed his police atrocities. The phenomenon of how for many
centuries the peasants of this region maintained their hold on the military
profession in North India and turned soldiering into a major tool of their sur-
vival represents a major, though not the only, chapter of the military history
of India in the early modern period. Other features of that history, especially
the apparatus set up by the Moguls to achieve a measure of control over North
India's military labour market, are discussed by Kaushik Roy in this volume.
The soldiering tradition of Hindustan was kept alive by its peasantries for
almost four centuries, its village leaders tenaciously guarding their position
as a recruitment area for the best-rewarded units of infantry in North India.
As a tradition of peasant soldiering, it is traceable at least to the fifteenth-
21 Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India, pp. 364-405. Habib here shows how, paradoxically,
the agrarian collapse of the empire was to a significant extent caused by the extractive opportuni-
ties offered to its centrally managed official elite, the mansabdari "apparatus", of the empire, the
organization of which was, in itself, one of the great achievements of the Mogul leadership.
22 For a definition of the term zamindar, see Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India,
pp. 384-389.
23 'Allami, The A'in-i Akbari, II, pp. 141-367. See also n. 7.
2 5 6
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
century Sharqi sultanate of Jaunpur. Many Rajput, i.e. warrior-clan, vassals
of this realm served the Sharqi sultans with their peasant war bands. There
is evidence of close alliances between the sultans of this period, Sharqis
and others, and their Rajput warlords. Such alliances were not necessarily
of an unequal nature. In terms of the taxonomy of our project, they partake
of the quality of reciprocity. Just as Rajput women occupied an honourable
place in the sultans' seraglios, Rajput alliances with Muslim women and
their presence in Rajput royal households were considered regular. Women
acted as the seal on and as proof of the intimacy and sacredness of these
Hindu-Muslim alliances. After the sultans lost control of Jaunpur to the
Lodi Afghans of Delhi in the 1480s, a clan of local Rajputs spearheaded an
insurrection in support of this "reciprocal" and "intercommunal" tradition
of alliance-formation. In the rising, 200,000 or even 300,000 Hindustani
footsoldiers are reported to have participated: inflated figures no doubt,
but, compared to the 15,000 horsemen the source mentions, clearly convey-
ing the impression of enormous manpower originating with the regional
landholders and their peasantries. 24
Perhaps because the subsequent failure of the rising and the conquest of
Hindustan by the Lodis reduced their chances of military employment in
their own region, and possibly even before the Lodis put an end to the Jaunpur
sultanate, 25 many of these levies moved west and south in search of naukari,
the term then and later used for the honourable service of roaming warriors.
These migrating professionals proved to be in great demand. They facilitated
the renewal of the splendour of the royal Tomar Rajput court at Gwaliyar, as
well as of the Muslim courts in Malwa and elsewhere in Central India. The
generic term used for these soldiers, "Purbiya", not only indicates a non-ethnic,
geographical origin from the eastward (Purab, i.e. Hindustan, the country
east of Delhi); it also came to define a migratory soldiering identity of its own,
an identity that implied the ability of those representing it to contract royal
patronage in a labour market that extended far beyond their home region.
After the collapse of its fortunes under the Tomars, the Purbiya tradition
of naukari marketed, so to say, its next incarnation or soldiers' identity.
It was introduced to the North Indian military labour market under a
more distinct brand name than that of Purbiya, namely that of Ujjainiya.
The leaders of the Ujjainiya clan were zamindars, or territorial lords, of
Bhojpur in the southwest of Bihar. They now assumed the role of recruit-
24 Saeed, The Sharqi Sultanate of Jaunpur, pp. 101-107; Niamatullah, Niamatullah's History of
the Afghans, Part I, pp. 72-73, 136-140.
25 See for this discussion Khan, Gunpowder and Firearms, pp. 218-226.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
257
ing captains in a grand way and with their war bands began to compete
in the supra-local market for expert fighting units. By the Rajputs of the
west of India, especially those in the region later called Rajputana, the
Ujjainiyas would, along with most other clans in Hindustan, be considered
genealogically "spurious", that is, not of pure lineage and therefore unfit as
marriage partners. And, it is true, their strength lay elsewhere. During the
first decades of the sixteenth century, they made themselves indispensable
as specialized recruiting agents and commanders of Purbiyas. The role of the
clan in marketing the services not only of their own men, but also of all those
associated with the old Purbiya recruitment tradition, in negotiating for
them their conditions of employment and in leading them in the field was
a cardinal one and explains how the name Ujjainiya became the trademark
and identity of the men they led. The great reputation these units acquired
with the pretenders, warlords, and rulers of North India was enhanced by
the close association of Ujjainiya brokerage, first with the pilgrimage centre
of Baksar near Bhojpur and, secondly, with the Sur Afghans, then at the
start of their comet-like emergence as a North Indian dynasty in the 1530s.
A bath in a holy tank (the term here is used in the Indian sense of a
water reservoir) of Baksar, known as Tiger Tank, ensured a young peasant
of whatever caste both consecration as a fearless warrior - for that is what
a tiger is - and, importantly, after a painless deconsecration during which
one shed one's tiger nature after long years of service (naukari), a chance to
return to one's village farm. The Afghan Farid Sur, the future Delhi sultan
Sher Shah, depended a great deal on the Ujjainiya Rajputs' ability to muster
men by the thousands - by no means all from their own clan, but from
the inexhaustible manpower of Hindustan - and on his personal relation-
ship with their leaders. From the point of view of the Hindustani peasant
fighter, the decision to serve an Ujjainiya lord could turn out to be a first
step towards assuming the Ujjainiya Rajput identity oneself and to being
adopted as a member of the clan. Military recruitment often was, as noted
earlier, a great engine of identity change. But this was not necessarily always
so. In the military labour market all identities remained open, multiple,
flexible, and temporary for as long it was in the interest of the functioning of
the military profession as an aspect of the agrarian economy of Hindustan.
At the battle of Surajgarh, in which Sher defeated the Bengal army, he
put 3,000 hand-picked Afghans and 2,000 "Ujjainiyas" under their leader
Gajpat Ujjainiya in his first line. After the battle was won,
all the spoils of war, comprising elephants, horses, and other equip-
ments, which had fallen into the hands of [Gajpat] were allowed to be
258
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
retained by him. At the time of departure of [Gajpat] he [Sher] tied
with his own hand the bejewelled sword to hang round [Gajpat's]
waist, bound his arm with a jewelled armlet, gave a string of pearls
round his neck, fixed a bejewelled ornament in his headdress, gave
a horse, head-to-foot dress and a sword for prince Bairishal [Gajpat's
brother], and gave Baksar as a fief to him. 26
I have quoted this passage because it articulates and advertises the fame
of both the Sur Afghans and the Ujjainiya leadership as agencies of great
distributive intensity: naukari under a military agent such as Gajpat and,
indirectly, under a ruler such as Sher meant a share in spoils that might be
huge. The chronicles telling the story of the great early sixteenth-century
Purbiya warlords of Malwa such as Silhadi likewise strongly and explicitly
emphasize their wealth and largesse. 27 The organized loot of large-scale war
was far more profitable than the haphazard local plundering of straggling
travellers and small groups of soldiers. To be recruited in those years by an
Ujjainiya broker indeed meant profit and privilege.
The degree, therefore, to which one's dream as a naukar would come true
was dependent on the diplomatic and entrepreneurial talent of the dealer in
manpower or the recruiting warlord one joined and entrusted one's fate to.
In addition, however, there was the imponderable factor of big politics. In the
case of Sher Shah, his bitter struggle with the Mogul Humayun compelled
the Ujjainiya agency to split into factions in order to keep open options of
naukari in several directions, a strategy that, as we saw, was of the essence
for peasant survival in North India. Sher Shah and Humayun cultivated
the Ujjainiya clan connection as desperately as the local Rajput lineages
needed the treasure and loot of major campaigns.
In situations like this, positions easily shifted. For groups of peasant
soldiers, there was a constant need to reconsider one's temporary identity as
an Ujjainiya naukar, and to re-evaluate the status of the lord or ruler whose
salt (namak) one ate. Loyalty to a throne could stand in the way of survival.
This characteristic of contingent or ad hoc service applied much more
strongly to the broker-state relationship (which can be described in terms
of commodified labour and aggregate contracts) than to the relationship
of the broker, or patron, with his soldier clients (which was of a reciprocal
nature). This broker-mediated, two-level model, I suggest, is valid for the
entire pre-British period. The commodifying agency that turned village
26 Ambashthya, "The Accounts of the Ujjainiyas in Bihar", p. 438.
27 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 8sff.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
259
labour into state labour was provided by brokers with local roots, who were
pivotal in ushering the peasant to a niche of service at the level of the state
in a way that preserved his autonomy to a fair degree.
Not all options, however, would be open at all times. After the Moguls
firmly established themselves in North India in the 1570s, the patronage of
the state became even more of a prize than earlier. The Ujjainiyas retained
a hold on only a minor share of it. They hung on as managers of extensive
agricultural tracts in western Bihar and continued as pugnacious leaders of
undoubted regional notoriety; yet, by the time of Shahjahan's reign (1628-
1658), they had lost their role as the principal recruiters and middlemen
of the great reservoir of military labour of central Hindustan to others.
At least partly, Mogul favour by then had shifted first to the clan of the
Kachhwahas of Amber in Rajasthan, and then to the Bundela Rajputs who
were zamindars in the region roughly between the home of the Gwaliyar
Tomars and that of the Ujjainiyas.
No Bundela leader was ever as spectacularly successful as the Mogul
emperor Jahangir's favourite Raja Bir Singh Deo (d. 1627) in channelling the
resources, financial as well as otherwise, of the empire towards himself, his
clansmen, and the soldiers of Hindustan. A hugely talented recruiting agent
and military manager, he succeeded in putting numerous units, mainly
infantry, at the disposal of Jahangir without ever having to relinquish per-
sonal command over them. He obtained an elevated mansabdari (service
nobility) rank: in 1615, it was 4,700, at that time a very high figure. Only very
few men in the empire ever succeeded to the same extent as Bir Singh Deo
in monopolizing control of the military labour market of Hindustan and
combining the usually distinct functions of employer (mansabdar) and
recruiter of peasant infantry. Jahangir gave Bir Singh Deo, "than whom
in the rajput caste there is no greater nobleman", as he wrote of him, the
title of maharaja. Like his Tomar and Ujjainiya predecessors, the financial
means Bir Singh Deo was able to invest in and extract from the Mogul state
were impressive. In 1624, he first contributed a sum of between 200,000 and
300,000 rupees to the cost of the imperial campaign in eastern Hindustan
against the rebellious prince Khurram, the future emperor Shahjahan, and
in the end plundered his camp seizing as booty many gold coins, jewels,
3,000 horses, and 40 elephants. Or perhaps it is better to say that he pre-
vented Khurram's enemies from getting hold of these valuables, because, as
a Dutch chronicler remarked, Bir Singh Deo was a great friend of the prince.
Naturally, as a manpower broker he had to have friends in both camps in
order to remain in place as a partner in the empire's extortionate enterprise.
260
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
Bir Singh Deo's spending practices, like those of his predecessors, were
impressive. In Agra he had a palace on the river, next to the mansion of the
famous Man Singh Kachhwaha. His building activities in Bundelkhand, his
home region, advertised his financial might and his standing as a pious and
trustworthy leader: the palace-fort of Datiya, erected at a cost of 3.5 million
rupees, was only one of them; the famous tanks of Bir Sagar and Barwa
Sagar and the Chaturbhuj Vishnu temple at Orchha, part of which still
stands, were others. An even greater achievement of his was the Keshav Dev
temple, devoted to Krishna, at Mathura, which according to Jean-Baptiste
Tavernier, the French traveller, was one of the most sumptuous buildings in
all India and was visited by large numbers of pilgrims. Bir Singh Deo himself
went to Mathura as a pilgrim to weigh himself against an amount of gold
which, together with an additional 81 man of gold, probably representing
the eighty-one districts (parganas) that constituted his realm (or fief, if you
like), was then distributed as charity. It was his way to wash off the physical
and political impurities of his career - he was the murderer of Abu'l Fazl,
Akbar's distinguished minister - and to reconnect with the principles of
dharmic order, as well as to advertise, far beyond his native Bundelkhand,
his dominant position in the military labour market of Hindustan. 28 But
the exercise also shows the enormous distributive energy generated by
military entrepreneurship. Through him and men like him, large sums of
money found their way back into the village economy, though probably
not always into the hands of the same villagers who had paid these sums
as taxes in the first place.
In this manner, Bir Singh Deo set in motion the tradition of imperial
naukari, or service, of Purbiya/Hindustani peasant soldiers under jobber-
commanders of the Bundela clan. Apart from its economic importance
in terms of the flow of agrarian revenue back to the countryside, the phe-
nomenon of massive military service, or naukari, had a profound cultural
impact on peasant society. This is illustrated by the veneration in which the
soldiers - again, by no means all of them of Bundela lineages themselves -
who followed Bir Singh Deo and his successors, came to hold Hardaul, one
of the great Bundela's own sons. After his murder by one of his brothers,
Hardaul became the object of devotion in a soldiers' cult that took root in
the core region of Purbiya recruitment, i.e., in all the districts that supplied
young men (jawans) to the jobber-commanders, Bundela and otherwise,
who took over Bir Singh Deo's business after his death. The story is too long
28 Kolff and van Santen, De Geschriften van Francisco Pelsaert over Mughal Indie, pp. 187, 191-192,
225, 249; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 128-130.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
261
to tell here. But the cult was yet another means through which peasant
boys came to partake of a specific and cherished soldiers' identity. 29 The
remoulding of old social and ritual distinctions, the adoption of second or
parallel identities of a sect or clan nature, whether temporary or permanent,
was a natural corollary of what I termed naukari and an inextricable part
of the workings of the military labour machine of North India.
After the decline of the Ujjainiya clan and Bir Singh Deo Bundela's
death, minor lineage heads of both clans would continue to be active in
recruitment, brokerage, and state service. During the heyday of the empire,
however, the Mogul system compelled a considerable number of clans and
extended families of zamindars to give up the large-scale employment of
war bands that they had undertaken on their own account. Though some
continued to seek imperial contracts while at the same time resisting the
empire's interference in their home lands, others fell back on the manage-
ment of their villages, while attempting to extricate some external income
from police duties and local political patronage.
With this, the military labour market for infantry as a Longue duree
phenomenon once more entered a new phase, this time partly emancipated
from the old monopoly of localized Rajput clan brokerage and assuming
a more regional identity. It came of age, as it were, in the jobbing and
ritual practices of the brahmanical pilgrimage centre of Baksar, already
mentioned, right at the centre of the old Purbiya and Ujjainiya recruiting
grounds in the Bhojpur district of West Bihar. As early as 1580 we hear of
a Brahman Mogul officer who attempted to draft soldiers at that place or,
rather, at the holy tank of that name; he was killed on the bank of the Ganga
by the Ujjainiya interest, then still too strong to brook interference. Half a
century later, however, Mogul intrusion became the rule rather than the
exception. Soon, large numbers of soldiers derived their identity from a real
or supposed connection with Baksar rather than from a Rajput clan's agency.
Significantly, they became known as Baksariyas, a name that, until the end
of the eighteenth century, would almost be synonymous with Hindustani
musketeers or matchlockmen, though one also meets some Baksariya
cavalry. A Mogul source of 1690 still mentions Baksariyas and Bundelas as
the categories that sum up the presence of regular matchlockmen in the
imperial army. But soon one finds only the first identity. By the second
decade of the eighteenth century, the British East India Company had some
of these "sepoys" in its pay. In 1757, "Baksariya" musketeers served under
29 Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. i45ff.
262
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
Clive, who, in the next year, raised the third Bengal sepoy battalion in the
Bhojpur area. 30
The Baksariyas served under jamadars, officers without an ethnically
defined identity, to whom they owed their recruitment. In the eighteenth
century, these officers, increasingly without a decisive agrarian base them-
selves, came fully into their own as a category of recruiters-cum-officers.
They represented the crucial manpower-nexus of the military labour
market. In the absence of the old clan brokers and probably connected
with the adoption of sharpshooting matchlocks by peasant infantry units,
men rose from the ranks and set themselves up as autonomous brokers.
As jamadars they performed the task - well-known in the labour history
of India - of jobbers, in this case jobber-cum-commanders. Without their
recruitment expertise and negotiating skills, the Purbiya tradition of
soldiering could not have maintained its remarkable near-monopoly of
the market for infantrymen in North India. The ordinary sepoy was only
"a musket in a mass of firepower", dependent, as he had always been, on
some sort of labour agency.
On the jamadars' loyalty often depended the political fortunes of the
Moguls, the Mogul empire's successor states, and the British Company. The
fate of Siraj ud-Daula, the ruler of Bengal and Clive's adversary at Plassey
in 1757, hinged crucially on his principal sepoy jamadars. 31 However, far-
reaching as the revolutions in the brokering profession were for some of
the elite groups of Hindustan, in the experience of the peasantries service
conditions must have remained largely the same. Their near-monopoly of
the labour market never depended on the particular brand or label under
which their clan leaders or jamadars negotiated for them and offered their
services to mansabdars, provincial rulers, or the British. The Baksariyas,
moreover, just as the Ujjainiya and Bundela soldiers before them, and as
their successor incarnation, that of the Company's sepoys, would do, always
looked forward to returning to the family farms of Hindustan they had left
as boys of perhaps only seventeen years of age. They served as jawans, that
is young men, which even today is the name affectionately given in India
to the common soldier. At the age of forty, when according to tradition one
ceased to be a jawan, it was high time to return home to one's village. 32 What
30 Wickremesekera, "Best Black Troops in the World", p. 100.
31 Yang, The Limited Raj, pp. 191-194; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 171, 174, 177, 179.
32 The dedication on war monuments in modern India "Jay kisdnjay jawan" ("Hurrah for the
peasant, hurrah for the soldier") is a strong reminder of the continuing association in public
opinion of the two occupations.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
263
did not change either, at least for a while, was that, though restricted in
their freedom by British officers and new rules of discipline and drill, they
endeavoured where possible to keep their options open and renegotiate
their contracts, especially with respect to pay and, as we shall see, caste
status.
Another centuries-old feature of the Hindustani labour market may,
under Company rule, even have become more prominent. I mean the self-
recruiting character of the peasant armies discussed earlier. During the
eighteenth century, recruiting parties are known to have been sent to vil-
lages in Company territory. Often, however, men came to military stations
on their own initiative. The regiments actively encouraged their sepoys to
bring friends and relatives as potential recruits. In 1773 it was reported that
young village men "presented themselves daily on the parade ground for
employment", although, when an urgent need arose, trustworthy Indian
officersjamac/ars and havildars, were sent out on behalf of the Company
regiment to bring in new recruits. Even until the so-called Mutiny of 1857,
methods of self-recruitment like these remained the common system. 33
From within the regiments, Indian agency and patronage monopolized and
fulfilled the military employment requirements of the conquering colonial
state. Rather than the Company's army representing a world separate from
village society, it served, in a way, as the military wing of the agrarian
economy of Hindustan, a guarantee of a steady flow of cash to numberless
village managers.
Members of many different castes, including a large number of low and
"spurious" castes, had traditionally maintained a strong foothold on military
employment. 34 As the Company conquered North India and reduced the
number of territorial chiefs and rulers, however, it acquired a unique posi-
tion in the labour market. To a dramatic degree, the employers' demand for
military labour now fell far short of the available supply. Employment op-
portunities decreased and competition for fully paid military jobs became
fierce. Naturally, the landholding, mainly high-caste elites of the traditional
recruiting grounds of Hindustan, who were allowed to recruit whom they
pleased by the army authorities, were in a position to be as selective when
filling vacancies as they chose. So, they turned their regiments into preserves
of their own castes. Any soldier would now make the most of his family and
33 Barat, The Bengal Native Infantry, p. 49; Alavi, The Sepoys and the Company, pp. 47-48.
Wickremesekera speaks of "the jamadari system of recruitment" having become widespread
by the early eighteenth century: "Best Black Troops in the World", p. 40.
34 For examples, see Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. liyff.
264
DIRK H.A. KOLFF
village ties and present his younger brothers, nephews, or fellow villagers
to his commanding officer as recruits. The process was already underway
in, for instance, the maharaja of Benares' army before it reached that of
the Company. So the dominant castes of Hindustan, Bhumihar brahmans
and several clans of Rajputs, made themselves into the dominant castes of
the Company's sepoy army, not only culturally, but also numerically. As a
result, the Company's regiments, self-perpetuating institutions as never
before, became inward-looking preserves of Hindustani elite power. The
Company could not have stopped the process. In fact, as it strengthened the
social cohesion of the regiments, officers acquiesced to and encouraged it;
colonial blindness even made them suggest it was their own predilection
for the cleaner castes that had set the process going. 35
So, the arrival of the East India Company on North India's labour market
did after all mean a break with tradition. The Company was in a position to
establish a monopoly as an employer of soldiers, at least at the state level.
This largely stopped the ongoing hassle and fuss of the soldiers' brokers
over their clients' terms of service. There was little to negotiate now. Village
elites may have held on to their monopoly of recruitment in large parts
of Hindustan; the fact of the exclusion of other state employers by the
monopolist Company severely reduced the sepoys' power of negotiation
when it came to formalizing the terms of service.
Genealogically speaking, it is true that the Company's sepoy army was
a straight descendant and a reincarnation of the Purbiya-Tomar-Ujjainiya-
Bundela-Baksariya tradition of Hindustani peasant soldiering. It is also true
that sepoys continued to send huge amounts of pay to their home villages.
By its grants of land to pensioned-off soldiers - a kind of latter-day watan
system - the invalid establishment of the Company's Bengal Army even
strengthened its link and that of its sepoys with the traditional recruiting
grounds of Hindustan. But with only one employer left, the role for broker-
age, for labour agents and jobber-commanders (jamadars) dwindled to
almost nil. Desertion and defection to another warlord or state were no
longer options. In the newly juridified atmosphere of the colonial state,
aggressive attempts at renegotiating one's terms of service were deemed
to be mutinies.
Inward-looking, I said. Those sepoys who were lucky enough to retain
employment with the monopolist Company compensated their loss of
negotiating power by inventing a cult of themselves as pure brahmans
35 In a similar process, the untouchables were gradually excluded from the ranks of the Madras
Army: Wickremesekera, "Best Black Troops in the World", p. 103.
PEASANTS FIGHTING FOR A LIVING IN EARLY MODERN NORTH INDIA
265
and respectable Rajputs. The Company, as we saw, obliged. Lower-caste
sepoys, such as the Pasis, who had contributed much to the centuries-old
Purbiya tradition of mobile labour and had helped fight Clive's battles, "were
excluded from the line, in order to more fully conciliate the higher classes". 36
Even then, the Bhumihars - a new identity of "military brahmans" - and
Rajputs who succeeded in holding on to employment, could never com-
pletely reconcile themselves to a contract that deprived them of all options
of service other than those that suited the British. Their last bid to regain
their old freedom of negotiation according to the ancient code of honourable
free agency or naukari would come to naught in the rising of 1857.
After that, the options on the market for mobile labour in Hindustan
would be even more meagre than before. In a radical shift of policy, the
British turned westwards, especially to the Punjab, for its recruits. The old
system - which I characterized as a two-tiered one, composed, at the level of
the village economy, of a relatively free and reciprocal relationship between
surplus agrarian labour and locally rooted brokers and, at the level of the
broker-state relationship, of freely contracted service deals of aggregated,
commodified labour - collapsed for good. For most men in the old recruiting
villages of Hindustan, there was no alternative, then, but to stick to their
share of the family fields and, if it seemed advantageous, force out of the
agrarian labour market the lower-status men they had deprived of profitable
army service two or three generations earlier. No compensation in the form
of new employment opportunities was offered except in the tea gardens of
Assam, as a strongman in one of the armed gangs of the odd big landholder
in Bengal, or as an indentured labourer in one of the overseas parts of the
empire. For these jobs, brokerage was in the hands of men appointed by the
colonial authorities in Calcutta, men with no roots or interest in agrarian
Hindustan, which now entered a long phase of often abject poverty.
36 Chattopadhyaya, The Sepoy Mutiny, 7857, p. 72; Singh, Indian Army under the East India
Company, p. 157; Kolff, Naukar, Rajput & Sepoy, pp. 28, ii7ff. The quote - taken from the remi-
niscences of a British officer published in 1830 - is found in Peers, '"The Habitual Nobility of
Being'", 550. See also Gordon, "Symbolic and Structural Constraints", p. 173.
"True to their salt"
Mechanisms for recruiting and managing military labour
in the army of the East India Company during the Carnatic
Wars in India
Robert Johnson
South Asian personnel were critically important to the British military
effort in the Carnatic Wars (1746-1748, 1749-1754, 1757-1763). Since European
personnel were relatively few in number, they were compelled to augment
their strength with a trained cadre of indigenous men. 1 As in other theatres
of war in the period 1746-1763, the recruitment of military labour into armies
from beyond the parent state was common. In North America, Europe, and
South Asia, native or mercenary forces were employed with an emphasis on
the steady improvement of their efficiency and cost-effectiveness although
quality was linked to the tasks they were to perform.
Drawing on the background to the Carnatic Wars, this chapter analyses
the types, recruitment patterns, and uses of military labour, offering a
comparison between those drawn from Europe and the subcontinent,
including the assessments made by contemporaries. In contrast to recent
historiographical trends that seek to emphasize ideological judgements
about the use of South Asian labour, archival records suggest the Brit-
ish were eminently pragmatic in their decisions about manpower. They
interpreted conditions in India through their own experiences, looking for
particular "types", but they also borrowed from local practices, particularly
when the sheer demand for trained manpower in the 1750s outweighed
any ideological considerations. Nevertheless, the British were aware of the
need to acknowledge cultural sensitivities, and the Company army was not
entirely converted to a "European" model.
In order to assist in making wider comparative judgements about military
labour in this period, it is possible to identify here certain taxonomies and
evolutionary trends in common with other areas of global labour history
research. The army of the East India Company in the period 1746-1763,
regardless of its quality, represents a shift from a force consisting of Euro-
1 South Asian labour was not confined to filling the ranks of the Europeans' armies, as a
great number of local civilians and camp followers were vital to the functioning of the logistical
chain. However, this aspect of employment remains outside the scope of this chapter.
268
ROBERT JOHNSON
pean "conscript professionals" with a handful of "ethnic conscripts" and
"ethnic mercenaries", led by an officer corps that was in part "mercenary
professional". By the end of the Third Carnatic War, the troops of the East
India Company resembled "ethnic professionals", augmented by auxiliaries
who might still be categorized as "ethnic mercenaries", thus constitut-
ing a "mixed force" of labour types. The European contingent, raised by
a combination of voluntarism and "crimping" (impressment), remained
either "professional mercenaries" or "professional conscripts". This chapter
examines these changes and continuities, illustrating an army on the cusp
of a significant transformation in its imperial labour systems.
Staying true to their salt: The historiographical context
Over the past thirty years, a great deal of attention has been paid to inter-
pretations of the British colonial encounter in South Asia in the light of
post-colonial studies. z There has been a comprehensive search for the ideo-
logical assumptions and constructions of the colonizers and the subsequent
reactions of the colonized. The approach itself has been scrutinized and
critiqued, with detractors arguing that the colonized were not simply pas-
sive victims of colonizing "discourses" and power relationships, but active
agents in the dynamic processes at work. Subsequently some scholars have
tried to show that the British Empire and its colonial subjects were engaged
in "dialogues" of power, that the British system was flexible and porous, and
that the debate had not taken sufficient notice of gender in its analysis of
class and race. 3 However, there seemed to be a universal acceptance of the
idea that "empire" was inherently violent, stripping peoples of power and
dignity, and at times altering their behaviour so profoundly that, even after
independence, colonial taxonomies persisted. With a deeply moralizing
agenda in keeping with late twentieth-century ideas of social justice and
equality, the British period in India was condemned as fundamentally
unjust, often cruel, and irredeemably corrupt. These debates are particularly
important in any consideration of military labour in South Asia in the
eighteenth century.
However, far from simply being a system of violence, the East India Com-
pany used its army, in keeping with mid-eighteenth-century ideas about
2 Said, Orientalism; Guha and Spivak, Selected Subaltern Studies; Spivak, "Can the Subaltern
Speak?"
3 Washbrook, 'Orients and Occidents'.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
269
the state and public order, to establish pacified regions more conducive to
commerce. They were engaged in partnerships and alliances. The recruit-
ment of an effective, trained, and disciplined army was a crucial element
of this process, and was seen as fundamental to the exploitation of the
military labour market.
It is important to emphasize, from the outset, this pragmatic character of
governance, recruitment, military organization, and pacification. Despite
numerous attempts to identify ideological reasons for the expansion of
Company rule in India, the conduct of its officers and the raising or use
of armies, the British displayed a practical approach to the problems they
confronted. Their points of reference were, unsurprisingly, entirely Euro-
pean, but they applied no rigid systems and responded in a way that took
account of local conditions to establish their own local supremacy, the free
flow of trade, minimal costs, and maximum profit. Moreover, the army was
crucial to the way that the East India Company developed: faced with a
great threat from French forces and local instability, the Company employed
a greater proportion of trained Indian personnel and engaged in a series
of significant military operations. While the British adopted European
standards in selection, training, and tactics, they were also conscious of the
limitations of British personnel in terms of health, quality, and availability.
It is generally accepted that the British learned from the French model in
the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s, namely, that Indian manpower, trained in
European modes of warfare, was crucial to winning campaigns in the sub-
continent. Philip Mason suggested that, once the British learned the value
of the Indian sepoy, they possessed the means to conquer the subcontinent. 4
However, Channa Wickremesekera disagreed, pointing to the widespread
contempt for Indian soldiers and their secondary roles in the campaigns. 5
He argued that the Europeans felt the Indians were incapable of effective
leadership or initiative. Indians were used primarily as factory guards or
garrison troops. Where units were raised, they were Europeanized, that is
trained, drilled, and even clothed on European lines, under British officers.
He argued that Indian troops were rarely used against French troops, and
tended to be deployed only to guard the baggage and lines of communica-
tion. If they performed well, the British attributed this to their own officers
or the inspiration of the British troops who accompanied them. In the key
engagements of the Seven Years War (1756-1763, contemporaneous with
4 Mason, A Matter of Honour, pp. 29-38.
5 Wickremesekera, European Success and Indian Failure in the SEC. See also Wickremesekera,
"Best Black Troops in the World".
270
ROBERT JOHNSON
the Third Carnatic War), European troops invariably led in the assault. The
only significant changes, he argued, were in the numbers actually employed
(which was a consequence of extended commitments) and an equalization
in weaponry between British and Indian troops (since, after 1760, both were
armed with flintlocks).
It is easy to assume that racial stereotypes, which were to become so
prominent in the nineteenth century, determined ideas in this period. In
fact, calculations about the need for, and costs of, military labour were more
important. The East India Company was eager to find those who would work
with it and sought, in peacetime, simply to keep labour costs to a minimum.
Moreover, manpower demands in wartime could overcome peacetime
prejudices very rapidly. Furthermore, while it is easy to find episodes in
which Indians were not trusted to make independent judgements without
the direction of European officers, this would also apply in exactly the same
way to European infantrymen. Men with rural backgrounds, lacking educa-
tion, characterized both European and Indian foot soldiers. Discipline was
harsh for both, but was proven, time after time, to be necessary to drill men
to overcome their instinctive desire to save themselves in close-quarters
battle. The forging of a collective solidarity and sense of purpose, often
through the moniker of the regiment or the willingness to follow a particular
leader, applied equally to British and Indian troops. The environment and
human health also had a part to play. Gerald Bryant argued that the need
to garrison India and to provide internal security, in an environment that
Europeans found debilitating and even lethal, one for which Indian troops
were better suited, meant that Indians were preferred. 6 Moreover, some
European officers were critical of the poor performance of low-quality
European soldiers compared with the sepoys.
In the 1740s, the British had been content to use casually employed local
armed men for the protection of their caravans, goods, and quarters. 7 From
the outset, control of territory brought with it the obligation of maintaining
the security of the population, although the Company's priority was to avoid
this sort of commitment in favour of commercial activity. Initially, the only
reliable military forces were European troops shipped from the British Isles.
The first were the King's troops, four companies of which landed in Bombay
in 1662 and who were invited to take up their arms in 1668 as "mercenary-
professionals" of the East India Company. In 1664, two companies of "Ra-
jputs" had been enlisted, but they got neither British officers nor training.
6 Bryant, The East India Company and Its Army.
7 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p. 30.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
271
They used their own weapons and possessed no uniforms, and their pay
was often in arrears. They were accordingly described by the governor of
Bombay as "more like bandits in the woods than military men". In response,
he organized a militia of all freemen and landholders. The officers were
British but the ranks were filled with Indians, most of whom had converted
to Christianity. Nevertheless, in 1706, six companies of "Gentoos" (Hindus)
were disbanded because they were so unreliable. By the 1740s, garrisons
were held by Europeans and elderly or infirm "mestees" (men of mixed
Portuguese and Indian descent, sometimes described as "Portuguese"),
"Topasses" and "Peons" (Christian Indians, the latter being the term used
in Madras), and "seapoys" (men armed with their own weapons, fit only for
guard duty). 8 In February 1747, Madras was protected by 3,000 peons but
only 900 had muskets and these were all matchlocks. The verdict that one
must draw is that the Indian troops in the Company's employment before
1750 were cheap and were attracted by financial reward but were of a very
low quality indeed - all of which was the result of peacetime parsimony.
The British Indian forces serving the Company were transformed by
encounters with the French. The nawab of the Carnatic had been defeated
by a French force made up of Europeans and sepoys under Captain Paradis,
while the fleet under Bertrand de la Bourdonnais had taken Madras in
1746. By contrast, the British, despite having a strong fleet, failed to capture
Pondicherry simply because they lacked the resources and manpower for
a land campaign. Although Madras was returned on the conclusion of
peace two years later, the seriousness of the threat and the French alliances
with local rulers had revealed the precarious position of the East India
Company in the subcontinent. The "unofficial war" between British and
French forces in India in fact continued, with each unable to maintain a
fleet off the east coast of India for long, and with both sides plagued by
the steady loss of European troops, who died of disease. The French and
particularly the British had too few European troops to take and hold all
the hill fortifications that lay between their territories or those of their
allies. Garrisoning the settlements that were captured used up precious
manpower. The solution was therefore entirely pragmatic: recruit more
Indian personnel who could cope better with the climate, survive local
diseases, and augment the dwindling numbers of trained Europeans.
The British position was weakened further when Marquis Joseph Francois
Dupleix, the governor-general of the French possessions in India, allied
himself with the new nizam of the Deccan, and earned the Mogul title
8 Lenman, Britain's Colonial Wars, p. 88.
272
ROBERT JOHNSON
of "Commander of the Seven Thousand" from the Emperor. At Arcot, the
French had gained another ally, Chanda Sahib, the new nawab of the Car-
natic. This put several thousand Indian troops at the disposal of France. The
British had backed Chanda Sahib's rival, Mohammed Ali, at Trichinopoly
and provided a garrison of 600 men, but the city was besieged in 1751. At
Fort St George in Madras and Fort St David, there were barely 350 British
personnel available - too few for a relief force. Nevertheless, Robert Clive,
who had been appointed originally as commissary of supply, was permitted
to march out with 200 European and 300 Indian troops, and three small
field guns, to make an audacious attack on Chanda Sahib's capital at Arcot.
After the surprise capture of the town, Clive put the settlement, with its
mile-long perimeter, into a state of defence. Clive possessed only 120 British
and 200 Indians fit for duty at the commencement of the siege. After a
bombardment, a series of sorties, and a major attack on a breach in the
walls, this garrison had been reduced to 80 British soldiers and 120 sepoys.
Nevertheless, reinforced, and then relieved at Arcot, by additional indig-
enous troops, Clive pursued the French and Indian armies and inflicted a
major defeat on them at Ami.
Clive's successes helped turn the tide of the war: Chanda Sahib's forces
were drawn off from Trichinopoly; Mysore and a portion of Marathas joined
Mohammed Ali. Dupleix tried to restore the situation by advancing towards
Madras with 400 Frenchmen and 2,000 sepoys. This force ambushed Clive
at Kaveripak (1752), when the British had force-marched to intercept him.
Clive defeated the ambush with his own outnumbered brigade. Indian men
employed by the Company went on to fight against the French and their
allies, describing themselves as the "veterans of Arcot" which, given there
had only been 120 survivors and the new force numbered 600, might refer
to French-trained sepoys who had changed sides. 9 There are other possible
explanations. They may have been sick soldiers who had recovered, or new
recruits who had joined the core of the old formation, although changing
sides was not so unusual in the fluid arrangements of the labour market
of southern India.
What was clear, from the emergence of the French as a more significant
rival to the East India Company in the subcontinent after 1750, was that
the British were deficient in trained manpower. Indian personnel were
therefore trained by Clive and others on the French model and, by the end
of the fighting in 1753, it was clear that organization, improved discipline,
and the toughening experience of campaigning had improved the quality
9 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p. 30.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
273
of the British Indian forces. The fact was that European personnel in India
were not available in sufficient numbers. Part of the problem was the supply:
there was considerable competition for recruits with the regular army
back in Britain. The outbreak of the Seven Years War in Europe therefore
necessitated that regular regiments were sent out to India. This immediately
raised questions about whether the Company or the Army should exercise
command and jurisdiction, but with 63 per cent of the Company's forces
being made up of regular units, the issue of manpower and who was to
provide it became a critical and much debated issue. 10 In Britain, potential
recruits sought to avoid all of the tropical destinations as death traps, and
that included India. 11 The regular army, which needed to fill its own ranks,
pressured its parliamentary allies to limit Company recruitment quotas.
These pressures meant that the Company was compelled to release more
funds to raise local personnel.
The recruitment of the Company Army
In 1757, Robert Clive had recruited the first Bengal native regiment, the Lai
Paltan, as a selected 515 men serving under British officers, thus expand-
ing the Company Army from its companies in Madras and its garrison at
Bombay. According to a return of the Bengal troops dated 10 April 1757,
Clive commanded some 1,914 "Seapoys", of which 1,400 were, in fact, from
Madras. In addition, the return listed 257 topasses, 157 of whom were drawn
from Bombay and the rest from Madras, but all of these were confined to
garrison and guard duty.
The new Bengal sepoys were picked using the standard British criteria
of the day. Many British soldiers were enlisted in rural Scotland as well as
the English countryside because of a preference for rural workers. Tall and
physically robust men were selected because of the endurance required
in military service. Agricultural labourers were considered tougher, more
used to the outdoors, able to move longer distances, and more biddable than
urban folk. The Indian recruits had to stand 5*7" tall and meet the same
10 Gilbert, "Recruitment and Reform in the East India Company Army", p. 91.
11 In analysing the numbers sick in Clive 's return of 1757, we find that, for the British, 16 officers
of 70 were sick, representing 23 per cent of their strength. There were 176 Other Ranks (ORs)
of 1,219 (including 25 of 257 Topasses), representing 14 per cent. For the sepoys, 53 of 1,914 were
sick, representing just 3 per cent of their strength. Average sick rates in 1790s for the Company
Army as a whole were 17 per cent and the death rate was 5 per cent: WO 17 1742 and 1743. National
Archives, Kew.
274
ROBERT JOHNSON
physical standards as would any British enlisted man. There was little that
was ideological about this, and the approach was universal.
There were, however, some other considerations. In 1750, Robert Orme
drew up a categorization of "martial races" based on the dietary habits and
climatic zones of the subcontinent. 12 While the issue of "martial races" has
become mired in ideological debates on race that belong to the nineteenth
century, in this period the criteria and associations were far more pragmat-
ic. 13 In general terms, Orme believed that wheat-growing areas produced
physically better and therefore more "martial" types than the areas where
rice was grown and where people were shorter. Accordingly, the Company
confined its recruitment to villages in wheat zones and therefore largely
within its own territories. 14 In 1757, immediately after Plassey, the Company
recruited in the Bengal Presidency because it was dissatisfied with the
standards of recruits in the nawab of Bengal's forces, but it found that few
men met the required height standard. 15 The rural men were thought to
be "undersized". As a result, by the 1770s, recruitment had been extended
into northern India, where, again, wheat-growing predominated. There, the
British most often selected what they considered "higher-caste Brahmans".
This was not just because of their physique however, but of self-perceptions
of "warrior traditions" and their ability to influence the recruitment of other
"sturdy" peasants. This self-perception as an ethnic professional social group
is evident in other locations outside South Asia in this period.
Another criterion for the recruitment of British troops in Scotland, ac-
cording to John Prebble, had been the need to find employment for unskilled
men who might otherwise foment disorder. 16 The significant demographic
shift in Britain in the mid to late eighteenth century meant rural over-
population could be managed in part by a natural flow to urban areas
and in part by employment in the armed forces. Having just confronted
the serious rebellion of the '45, it was understandable that British authori-
ties should be focused on questions of civil order and the management of
populations. In the Terai areas of Bengal, Robert Brooke was charged with
establishing a regiment to absorb selected hill-raiders and to employ them
in the pacification of their own homelands. Warren Hastings expressed the
view that preserving the caste system in India would prevent the "danger
12 Orme, Historical Fragments of the Mughal Empire.
13 The debate and its origins are fully unravelled in Roy, Brown Warriors of the Raj.
14 See, for example, Maj. Stainford to K. Kyd, 9 March and 17 March 1779, P/18/47, India Office
Records [henceforth, IOR].
15 Khan, SeirMutaquerin.
16 Prebble, Mutiny; Galloway, White People, Indians and Highlanders.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
275
that they will soon be united and embodied as an armed nation after the
example of the Sikhs". 17 He was concerned that they might "become too
formidable for their rulers". The Company therefore continued to co-opt
potential and even actual enemies throughout the next seventy years and,
with the exception of the Bengal regiments, looked particularly for men
from marginalized or peripheral rural communities who would have little
sympathy for the majority of the population.
The effect of British concerns about rebellion and the raising of Indian
regiments was to exaggerate the special status of caste privileges in Indian
units, preserving their preference not to travel across the Kala Pani (the
black sea), to eat only certain foods, and to respect religious rituals. These
enhanced the self-esteem of the troops, but caused resentment among
civilians of similar caste. These moves were designed to enhance recruit-
ment, separate the sepoy from any attachment to the people, and ensure
continued loyalty to the Company above the local population. It was for
these reasons also that the Company's military men opposed the ingress of
Christian missionaries who might, reflected the subsequent commander-in-
chief, Charles Cornwallis, "endanger a government which owes its principal
support to a native army composed of men of high caste whose fidelity
and affections we have hitherto secured by an unremitted attention not
to offend their religious scruples and superstitions". 18
However, the practice of recruitment, following British methods, was
not entirely uniform. In Britain, recruiting sergeants would seek disaf-
fected workers, enquiring as to those who felt their masters were unjust,
their wages too low, or their lives too limited by their womenfolk. Pay and
employment, especially when other options were limited, were a strong
incentive to enlist. Family size seems to have made a difference for some,
as opportunities to inherit land or business were curtailed. A tradition of
some sort of public service within the family, often military, could make the
appeal stronger. Young men, regardless of their nationality, often express a
desire to be tested as a rite of manhood, or to experience adventure in such
a way as to elevate their esteem with peers, family, or clan. Some men were
trying to escape issues at home (the "push" factors) including getting women
pregnant, drudgery, and petty crimes, but others felt the army had its own
attractions (the "pull" factors), including the ostentation of uniform, or the
17 Warren Hastings, Collections of Essays, Add. 29234, Hastings Papers.
18 Cornwallis to the Bishop of Salisbury, 1788, Cornwallis Papers, PRO 30/11/187, National
Archives, Kew.
276
ROBERT JOHNSON
appearance of young men returning on furlough who were better fed, taller,
and fitter and who often encouraged others to enlist. 19
In Britain, there were also some sharp practices. Wealthy men hoping to
advance themselves by the raising of a regiment for the government, such
as the Duke of Athole in 1778, were not above using the middlemen of local
businesses and hired agents as "human blood hounds" to pursue men and
conscript them. 20 Officially, recruiting sergeants were permitted to raise
groups of men "by beat of drum", literally beating a tattoo to get the atten-
tion of young men and then regaling them with stories of immediate cash,
generous wages, adventure, and personal glory. At country fairs and taverns
alcohol and stirring military music sometimes encouraged men further.
These tricks tended to attract a low quality of recruit, as recruiting sergeants
themselves recognized. Many people had a low regard for the army, and
artisan families felt that enlistment was the act of the desperate. However,
countless young men still regarded the army as a manly profession, with
glamorous uniforms likely to seduce women.
In its search for European personnel, the Company was forced to hire
"crimps", agents who were paid on the basis of the number of recruits they
ensnared.* 1 Kidnapping was common, the victims being locked up until they
could be placed on board a ship and sent out to India. The only volunteers
coming forward were those attempting to escape imprisonment or the
gallows. There were no officers to escort them or depots in Britain and
consequently there was no attempt to instil any discipline or training.
They were largely debtors, drunks, and criminals, and they were accused of
carrying "insolence, mutiny, profligacy, debauchery and disease into their
Armies in India". 22 To make matters worse, the Company did not have the
powers of martial law over their recruits while they were still in Britain.
Part of the reason for the draconian recruitment process was to prevent
men simply escaping back to civilian life.
When the Seven Years War began, the numbers of men recruited for the
Company actually fell as the services at home took a larger share of the pool.
In 1754-1755, the Company had obtained 1,001 men, but a year later only
488 were procured. In 1759-1760, only 202 men were found, and in 1761-1762
19 Laver, British Military Uniforms; Samuel Hutton, "The Life of an Old Soldier", cited in Palmer,
The Rambling Soldier, pp. 15-17.
20 Penny, The Traditions of Perth, pp. 60-61.
21 The figures we have for the 1770s suggest that the lowest price was 1 guinea per man (1776),
but in wartime (1777) this rose to 5 or 6 guineas per man: Committee of Shipping Report B92,
3 December 1776, IOR.
22 Letter by "A.B.", The Public Advertiser, 12 March 1771.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
277
this had fallen to 197. 23 The Company Army complained that too few were
being sent to maintain their regiments and they had to turn to as many
Europeans in Bengal as they could find to remain effective. 24 In 1759, the
Court of Directors admitted it was "impossible" to provide the 2,000 men
required by the army in India because it was experiencing "the greatest
difficulties in raising recruits". They directed that operations should be
limited to the manpower available. 25
After the war, gradually there were changes to the system. In 1769, the
Company was permitted to raise recruits "by beat of drum", that is, by
officially advertising rather than by kidnapping, and was also empowered
to raise a regiment in Britain, with commissioned officers. Complete units
would be sent out, rather than "trickle-posting" any arrivals. It was permit-
ted that up to a third of the regiment could consist of "foreign protestants",
but there was a deep suspicion of enlisting Catholics or Germans. 26 Indeed,
the Company directors were most concerned that the regiment might be
answerable only to the British government and could, therefore, threaten
the independence of the Company altogether. Another issue was cost: for
all its faults, crimping was cheaper than regular army recruiting or paying
vast bounties, and the Seven Years War cost the Company a fortune.
Regular officers in Britain were equally prejudicial on their side about the
new arrangements. They argued that India was a drain on manpower which
swallowed up men who should be deployed in the defence of Britain. One
member of Parliament likened India to "a sink". 27 As a result, the reforms
failed and the system reverted to crimps, only to collapse once more during
the American War of Independence until it was decreed that Irishmen might
be recruited from 1781 onwards. However, standards of recruits remained
very low, and some were actually sent back to Britain. Figures for the 1790s,
which appear to be typical even earlier in the century, suggest a rejection
rate of 10 per cent. 28 Some were: "particularly incapable of carrying the load
of arms, ammunition, necessaries and provisions, and undergoing hardships
and fatigues, to which soldiers to be useful; [?] to the public must necessarily
submit". 29 It was not until 1799 that the practice of crimping was brought
23 A. J. Farrington, L/Mil/9/85, IOR.
24 Despatches to Bengal, 25 March 1757, IOR.
25 Despatches to Bengal, 1759, IOR.
26 Gilbert, "Recruitment and Reform in the East Indian Company Army", p. 98.
27 London Evening Post, 16-18 April 1771.
28 See Colonel Brownrigg's Inspection Records, 1792, WO 113/15: National Archives, Kew.
29 Court of Directors Letter to Bengal, enc. Cornwallis to Directors, 15 December 1790, L/Mil/
Misc/127, IOR.
278
ROBERT JOHNSON
to an end and recruitment put under the jurisdiction of the regular army. 30
However, the Company remained short of European men and failed to fill
its own quotas.
The organization, management, and performance of the
Company Army
In his account of the fall of Calcutta to Siraj ud-Daula, the nawab of Bengal,
in 1756, John Holwell noted that the defences were manned by a handful
of gunners with 145 infantry of which, in total, only 60 were Europeans.
The militia consisted of 100 "Armenians", who were "entirely useless", and
a further 100 Indian "boys and slaves who were not capable of holding a
musket". 31 He estimated that, even with men drafted from the ships in port,
the garrison numbered only 250, including officers. Predictably, when Siraj
ud-Daula's forces came into view, the militia deserted and some Company
officers fled to the ships. The standard interpretation of the war is that
dramatic improvements were made to the quality of the Indian troops
through the imposition of discipline and European drill. By increasing
manpower and quality, the British were able to turn events around. How-
ever, the improvement of the Indian troops was only part of the formula:
the logistical expertise of Stringer Lawrence, Vice Admiral Charles Watson's
amphibious operations up the Hooghly River, and Robert Clive's leadership,
intrigues, and personal courage were crucial, as was the Company's capacity,
in contrast the French Company, to fund the conflict.
The improvements had begun with Stringer Lawrence in Cuddalore in
1748. He imposed strict discipline on topasses and Europeans alike at Fort St
David, mindful that Madras had fallen to the more effective French forces.
In December 1758, that new force was put to the test in a siege at Madras,
and endured two months of bombardment and more than a thousand
casualties before it was relieved. But it was also the growing campaign-
combat experience of the Company troops through the Carnatic Wars
that made the greatest difference. New units could draw on the expertise
of veterans, especially junior commanders, and apply this directly to their
30 A fascinating contrast can be made with the Royal Navy's patterns of recruitment in the late
eighteenth century. New research by Jeremiah Dancy suggests that "pressed men" constituted
on average no more than 10 per cent of the crews since ships required skilled labour. The decline
of crimping coincides with the disfavour towards impressments in the Senior Service: Dancy,
"British Naval Manpower During the French Revolutionary Wars".
31 Cited in Lenman, Britain's Colonial Wars, p. 106.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
279
training. Clive's sepoys displayed remarkable endurance when besieged, on
campaign marches and in battle. At the siege of Arcot, for example, their
morale remained intact despite a steady attrition of their numbers, and in
the march to intercept Dupleix in 1752, his sepoys made 50 miles in just
twenty hours, covering a total of 66 miles in thirty-six hours and winning
a night battle at Kaveripak against the odds. At Volconda (or Golkonda)
(29 May 1752), a force made up almost entirely of Indian personnel in British
service charged a French battery and their supporting infantry. Despite
taking heavy casualties, the sepoys pressed home with the bayonet and
killed or captured the French, which suggests that their discipline, training,
and trust in their junior leadership were robust. The following year, Subadar
Sheikh Ibrahim, without any British support, defended his battery position
against a Franco-Indian force, and earned a significant reward from the
Company for his devotion to duty. 32 With six years of fighting behind them,
with improved discipline and the personalized and charismatic leadership
of Lawrence, Watson, and Clive, the Company had an effective sepoy army
with naval support to rival the French.
After the Carnatic/Seven Years War, greater military efficiency in Asian
units was manifest in other ways. The standards of British recruits coming
to India showed no sign of improvement, prompting the governor-general
to write: "what shall I say of the Company's Europeans [soldiers]? [...] I
would infinitely rather take the 73rd [Native] Regiment upon service with
me than the six Company's battalions." 33 Such comments have to be seen
in context: the sentiments maybe exaggerated because of a sense of exas-
peration. Nevertheless, European officers were aware that Indian troops
were cheaper, better adapted to cope with the demands of campaigning in
the heat and humidity of South Asia, and, when trained in the European
manner, capable of the same achievements.
Although there had been only companies in the 1740s, it was decided in
1759 to raise battalions of Indian troops to match the French threat. Two
had in fact already been formed, but an additional five battalions were
mobilized. By the end of the war, the Company Army's establishment was
for ten battalions. Each battalion consisted of nine companies, each of 120
men, and one of these was a grenadier company.
In Clive's "Return of 1757", the Indian troops are recorded as having
various ranks of subadars; jamadars; havildars and naiks; colour (flag)
men; "Tom Toms" (drummers), trumpeters, and "Seapoys". It had been
32 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p. 38.
33 Cornwallis to Dundas, 16 November 1787, Home Misc. Series, vol. 85, IOR.
280
ROBERT JOHNSON
assumed in the 1740s that Indian ways were so strange that only Indian
officers could command Asian troops at the company level. Indeed, the
first Indian officers were really contractors who served as recruiters for the
men. Loyalty to the contractor was more important to the early recruits
than to the Company. But new contracts in the 1750s changed this. Each
man was made aware that he served the Company and was paid by the
Company. In November 1755, regulations stipulated that there should be
one subadar, four jamadars, eight havildars (sergeants), and eight naiks
(corporals). At the end of the war, this establishment of Indian leaders
was reduced (one subadar, two jamadars, and six havildars per company)
and each battalion was furnished with two commissioned officers, three
sergeant-majors (Europeans), and a "Black Commandant". However, Mason
noted that these Europeans were in little more than a supervisory capacity
or there to maintain numbers. There was little chance of promotion as a
commander in an Indian battalion, as progression could only be made
in European units. They were to: "make them keep up a good command
amongst the sepoys and to support them well in it". 34 The sergeant-majors
were to have "immediate direction of three of the companies" and were
charged to take "care of their discipline". Mason suggested that the non-
commissioned officers (NCOs) were the backbone of the Indian units and
that the concept of gentlemanly officers had not yet manifested itself. He
also argued that the survival of the "black commandant" was testament to
the importance of the old "reciprocal" chieftain system. In fact, it seems
likely that the commandant was an adviser to the Europeans on cultural
matters and the link to the recruiting base on which the battalion depended.
What was the appeal for Indian men to serve in the Company army?
There was not perhaps the strong tradition of service that would come to
characterize the Rajputs in British formations from the mid-nineteenth
century. What the British could offer was regular pay at 6 rupees a month. 35
Many Indian rulers rarely paid their men more than eight months a year,
leading to widespread brigandage, but even this salary was often in arrears
and siphoned off in ghost pay-rolling by intermediate commanders. The
advantage of the small European formations was that it made corruption
more difficult. The Company was also flexible in its arrangements. Sepoys
of South India were permitted to take their families along with them to
stations and garrisons and even on campaign. Pay advances were available,
and, as early as 1762, sepoys on overseas service could opt to have a portion
34 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p. 63.
35 Lenman, Britain's Colonial Wars, p. 100.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
281
of their pay delivered directly to their families. Indians could pay for com-
missions from 1763, and these were still relatively cheap (a week's pay in
1763), making personal advancement possible within the Company Army.
Many European soldiers, enlisted either as conscripts or volunteers,
grumbled about having their pay held back because of costs they had to
meet: 2d here and 2d there for blankets, boots, cleaning equipment, and ad-
ditional or extraordinary rations. Some soldiers wrote about not being able
to leave the service because of indebtedness. However, this was not always
financial, but rather a matter of honour. The Indian expression having to
remain "true to their salt" seems to have pervaded British personnel in some
cases and not just the sepoys of the Honourable East India Company. Such
sentiments would have taken time to develop, but the shared isolation of
India, regular pay and continuous employment, and the camaraderie of
the ranks transformed an otherwise alienating experience into a positive
one. In other words, recruits became regular soldiers with an esprit de
corps, and a professional indifference to outsiders. Oaths of loyalty were not
introduced until 1766, but they appear to have underpinned some existing
understanding about service in the Company Army and how it related to
concepts of personal honour. 3 * 3 The creation of battalions led to the adoption
of colours and these were incorporated into a symbiosis of European and
South Asian rituals to create a bond of loyalty and possession. Southern
Indian troops, for example, thought of their leaders and their colours as
distinctly and uniquely theirs.
Did the Indian infantry in Company service determine the outcome of
the Carnatic Wars in South Asia? What assessment can be made of their
effectiveness? It was once assumed that the British possessed technologi-
cal superiority, which gave them the edge in their engagements with the
Indian states. In fact, matchlocks with which the Indian forces were armed
had a higher rate of fire and a marginally greater range than the flintlock,
although the flintlock, in trained hands, could sustain the same rate of fire.
Moreover, the French forces in India were armed with the same weapon
types as the British. Indeed, within a few years, all the armies in India were
using flintlocks.
Certainly the British made extensive use of light, quick-firing, manoeu-
vrable artillery. At Trichinopoly in May 1754, three British six-pounder
guns devastated French infantry with case-shot at close range. Roundshot
ricocheting through dense cavalry also warded off large formations of
mounted men. Artillery was widely available in South Asia but many guns
36 Mason, A Matter of Honour, p. 66.
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ROBERT JOHNSON
possessed by Indian rulers were fixed or difficult to move, and there was
little standardization in their ammunition or calibres. However, while
Indian forces failed to produce guns that could be manoeuvred easily,
many of the batteries of the southern rulers were staffed by European
gunners. At Plassey, for example, the guns of Siraj ud-Daula were directed
by French artillerymen.
The differences between European and Indian forces were really more
regular organization and better discipline, which, in turn meant that, on
the battlefield, sepoys and European troops could maintain a high rate
of fire and sustain casualties without losing cohesion. These reflected
a particular type of military labour organization. Large numbers of ill-
disciplined cavalry or poorly armed peasants, led by individuals who merely
wished to demonstrate their personal courage, failed against the relentless
machinery of European warfare. The point is that it did not matter whether
the forces were Europeans or not; what mattered was their level of training,
morale, and discipline. 37 It is interesting to note that the Marathas adopted
European methods to create a disciplined and cohesive army, built up with
mercenary troops including Europeans in senior positions, and they too
enjoyed some years of success against the British. 38
In R.O. Cambridge 's Account of the War in India, published in 1772, the key
reason for the defeat of Indian armies by the Europeans and their sepoys was
the former's neglect of infantry. While Indian cavalry were perfectly capable
of charging against other horsemen, they tended to avoid the well-drilled
Company infantry for fear of losing their horses on which their wealth
depended. For the Company, raising and training infantry was cheaper than
cavalry, and the infantry could hold ports, forts, and garrisons as well as
act as a strike force. 39 Moreover, if supported by light artillery, infantrymen
could traverse all terrain in southern India. Certainly the labour categories
in the 1757 Return for Plassey indicate that all the troops were dismounted. 40
The lack of cavalry put the Company at a disadvantage in terms of recon-
naissance and therefore of intelligence-gathering, but this, if anything,
made them even more dependent on local sources of power, their Indian
allies, and intrigues against their adversaries.
37 Ibid., p. 40.
38 Gordon, The Marathas: 1600-1818.
39 Lenman, Britain's Colonial Wars, p. 96.
40 Letters by Clive, 6 February 1757 ff., 1962-10-142, National Army Museum, London.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
283
Comparative analysis
The second part of this chapter addresses the comparative elements of the
early East India Company army in terms of terms of service, type of labour,
type of army, and the causal drivers of the rise, dominance, or decline of
the East India Company's forms of military labour.
In addressing the variables in military labour in the East India Company
Army, I should first note that the British had always employed local labour
in India, particularly for the unskilled tasks associated with commerce and
with the security of their factories, stores, and godowns. Defence against
more numerous Indian forces relied largely on alliance and negotiations.
The inadequate nature of peons or topasses in any offensive capacity,
compared with disciplined and French sepoys, was already evident before
the Seven Years War broke out, and so it is perhaps no surprise that the
British enhanced their own systems to deal with the French threat. The
result was a larger and more effective, if more expensive, Company army
and, more significantly for this study, a transformation in the character of
military labour.
In the terms of service offered, the East India Company barely differenti-
ated between British and Indian recruits. Troops were paid a regular wage
in return for military service. Rates of pay were low but were comparatively
better in real terms to Indian troops. In the recruitment of topasses and
peons for garrison duty, the rate of pay was high enough to attract some
men to employment but appeared to be lower than that for most artisans.
For Europeans, recruiters in Britain would target men who perceived their
wages to be too low and offer cash inducements and bounties. Nevertheless,
the Company failed to attract enough men to maintain its regiments in
wartime and was forced to pay for "crimps" to impress manpower. Crimping,
despite its unpopularity, proved cheaper than trying to compete in the
labour market against civilian artisan wages. British soldiers argued that
they were held in a form of bondage because they became indebted to the
Company for their rations, uniform, and equipment. By contrast, Indian
men were paid a regular salary that proved attractive compared with the
standard practices of Indian rulers or corrupt commanders. Indians in
British service could transfer salaries to families, purchase commissions,
and obtain pay advances.
Soldiers' duration of service was closely related to the issue of pay. The
topasses who garrisoned Bombay in the 1740s had no specified age limits
for service and consequently some were quite elderly. European soldiers
were all considered to be "long service" but many of them were anxious that
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ROBERT JOHNSON
diseases might kill them before they reached the end of their service anyway
(the death rate being 5 per cent across the army). Nevertheless, Indian and
British personnel shared the desire to take up regular employment and
therefore accepted long service as a guarantee of work and wages.
British soldiers in Company service were subjected to far more legal
constraints than the Indian personnel, in terms of employment parameters.
The Company was unable to compete with the regular British Army for
its recruits in the United Kingdom for many years, and it turned to the
practice of crimping as a direct result of its consequent manpower short-
ages. The illegal nature of the practice was ignored by British authorities
because it tended to sweep up the elements of society that were thought
"undesirable". The imprisonment of recruits before transportation to India
was a measure to offset the lack of legal support for recruitment: recruits
were not subject to martial law and would therefore have simply deserted
at the first opportunity. However, these conditions suggest that many of
the British soldiers in the East India Company army could be categorized
as "conscript-slave".
The constraints on the employment of Indian troops were cultural rather
than legal. Caste preferences and ethnic prejudices could limit the type
of recruit and the tasks they might be expected to perform. The British
themselves adopted cultural preferences of their own, although pragmatism
and necessity dictated the numbers and physique of the recruits. For the
European troops there were added constraints: a desire to avoid the employ-
ment of too many Catholics and Germans, for example, yet an acceptance
of criminals. These criteria and the type of recruit the Company managed
to employ exasperated the officers who sought greater numbers, efficiency,
and effectiveness.
In assessing the taxonomy of military labour in the East India Company
Army, it is necessary to categorize their types and variations. While forms
of military labour across South Asia as a whole were very mixed, the phe-
nomenological varieties of military employment are, for the purposes of
comparison, classified here according to two criteria of either un/free labour
and un/commodified labour, and the subcategories of ethnic (reciprocal
labour); enslaved (tributary); conscripted (tributary); mercenary (corn-
modified); and professional (commodified). In addition, military labour
in the East India Company Army is assessed against the taxonomies of
forces that are feudal, aggregate contract, state commission, conscript, or
modern volunteer armies. This chapter, while to some extent following John
Lynn's model of acknowledging change and transformation, also addresses
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
285
the issue of typology and its dominance, locating the example of the East
India Company in the history of military labour embraced by this volume.
The earliest experiments in using local labour by the East India Company
were not a success, and in terms of categorization we might identify the
first "Rajpoot" garrison troops as "mercenary ethnic" although the Chris-
tian converts and mestees were so outcaste in Bombay that they might be
described as "conscript ethnic". The British personnel and local militia of
freeman and landholders recruited by the Company in Bombay in the last
decade of the seventeenth century appear to fit the category of "mercenary"
and "mercenary ethnic". In Madras in the 1740s, the 3,000 peons employed
also seem to fit the category of "mercenary ethnic". After the setbacks of
1746, where Madras fell to the French, the demand for manpower increased
but there was no change to the type of South Asian military labour: the
new, expanded force was still "mercenary ethnic" in character. Garrison
duties and the protection of lines of communication and depots, for which
these new forces were required, did not necessitate a change in labour type.
They were raised on the basis of being a cheap and barely trained force, and
consequently the quality of these forces was low.
However, by 1753, the type of labour was in the process of changing
to "professional ethnic". Robert Clive introduced standard organization,
intensive training, and regular pay. The seasoning experience of being on
campaign further improved the quality of the troops, and they began to
develop a new identity of professional indifference to other South Asian
forces or populations. However, we should guard against exaggerating
the change. The muster returns on Clive's forces in 1757 indicate that the
Company's army was very mixed: while a significant number of men were
categorized as trained "seapoys", there were still garrison troops and militia.
In the 1750s, the Company's forces remained a mix of "mercenary ethnic"
and "professional ethnic".
The further complication with the Indian personnel of the Company army
is that, throughout the second half of the eighteenth century, recruits were
sometimes offered by heads of families and these soldiers were expected
to enlist through tradition. These men might be regarded as "tributary
enslaved" labour within a system that was ostensibly "mercenary" and
"commodified". However, it is also clear that, after the success of Arcot in
1751 and with the attraction of regular pay, some personnel came forward
as volunteers. Some recruits self-selected on the basis of caste or ethnicity,
although the Company Army remained inclusive. The self-perception of
"professional ethnic" developed through the second half of the eighteenth
century, but, as a trait throughout South Asia, this perspective was not
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ROBERT JOHNSON
limited to the Company's forces. To enhance further the sense of profes-
sional status and to ensure there was no fraternization with indigenous
populations, the Company recruited men from peripheral regions more
frequently. The selection of former hill-raiders in the Terai region of Bengal
fit within this design of creating a "professional ethnic" force, but the men
employed in the Terai case, who were recruited to absorb surplus labour
that had turned to crime, might be regarded as a category of "ethnic slave".
The categorization of the Company army is problematized still further
by the British personnel. Officers were generally "professional-mercenary"
in their employment, although some used enlistment merely as the means
to gain access to civilian commercial opportunities in South Asia, and
therefore regarded themselves as "free" and "uncommodified" labour.
Soldiers were far more complex. Those pressed into service by aristocratic
landowners through local businessmen or other intermediaries were es-
sentially induced to enlist against their will, and therefore were "enslaved".
Crimping and kidnapping also fall into this taxonomy. Others were lured
into the army by the chance of better pay or opportunities and might be
classed as "mercenary". The fact that up to a third of personnel could be
recruited from foreign, that is European, and sectarian sources suggests
that a portion of the army could be classed as "mercenary ethnic". Service
for long periods overseas, for those that remained or survived the ravages
of climate and disease, led to the steady professionalization of the troops.
Re-enlistment, or the service of these long-term "professionals", needs to be
considered as other elements of the Company Army in this period.
What emerges is an army of Asians and Europeans that was in a period
of transition. Indian personnel shifted from "mercenary ethnic" to "profes-
sional ethnic", while British troops broadly changed from "enslaved" to
"professional" in service but remained "enslaved" or "mercenary" as recruit
types for most of the century. Yet, the Company Army remained a mixed
force, its types dependent on tasking as either a field army or garrison
troops. The army overall was dependent on sources of labour supply, low
in Britain but abundant in India, and offered terms of service that were
considered bad in Britain but attractive in South Asia.
Finally, we must make some assessment of the emergence and domi-
nance of the forms of military labour in the East India Company Army.
The reasons for the change in the form of military labour in this period can
be summarized as a shift in the supply and demand in the military labour
market; ideological factors (on the British side); financial and economic
pressures; and changes in the military-strategic situation in South Asia.
While it is somewhat artificial to attempt to attribute to each of these
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
287
elements a greater or lesser significance, since all are interdependent, it
was the military-strategic situation that set in motion changes in the form
and structure of the East India Company's military labour.
The fundamental insecurity of the Company's position in South Asia, in
part caused by the decay of the Mogul Empire and in part by the rivalry and
competition of European and Asian agents, necessitated a more effective
security force. Attempts to create a compact that prevented the French
and the British Companies from going to war with each other, even if there
were "Troubles" in Europe, had failed by 1755. Furthermore, the East India
Company could not rely entirely on bilateral agreements with local rulers,
as Siraj ud-Daula demonstrated in 1756. The subsequent security provided by
the Company's fortresses and new troops acted as a magnet for the traders
and peasants around Bombay and Madras, and in some cases these popula-
tions provided services, Company servants, and troops. The Maratha raids
and the siege of Madras in 1741 nevertheless underscored the vulnerability
of the British factories and their dependence on maritime support.
It was the French attack on Madras in 1746, launched by 1,100 Europeans
and 800 French sepoys against a garrison of 200 barely trained militia, that
spurred the Company to improve its security and release the necessary
capital. Fort St David was saved only by the intervention of the Royal Navy
in 1748, and it seemed that the Company was clinging to its possessions by
its fingernails. Lawrence's rapid training of a sepoy force enabled him to
achieve a small but significant victory at Cuddalore. Dupleix, in command
of Pondicherry, used 3,000 sepoys to defend the town against a British am-
phibious operation led by Admiral Edward Boscawan in 1748, but the British
already had 3,500 sepoys in their own force to augment their relatively small
European contingent. By 1752, when Lawrence surrounded the French at
Sriringham Island, the Company had a large and experienced force of Indian
troops led by equally seasoned officers. By the end of the war, there were
ten Indian battalions in Madras alone, representing a force approaching
10,000 men. With the infantry came the mobile British artillery that could
fire faster and with greater reliability than any Asian equivalent.
To support this apparatus, the Company marshalled its finances care-
fully, while the fortunes of the French Compagnie des Indes dwindled.
Nevertheless, the demands of war tended to push the Company officers
towards further conquest to meet the costs and realize the wealth in Mysore,
Arcot, Trichinopoly, and Tanjore. Clive acknowledged that control of these
territories and their land revenue was "what we are contending for" in the
conflict, which has subsequently been termed "military-fiscalism". The war
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ROBERT JOHNSON
had "militarized" the Company in Madras and set up a model which was
to be replicated in Bengal.
The fall of Calcutta further necessitated an expansion of the Company's
security forces. Watson and Clive launched an aggressive campaign to
recover the city and then to take the fight deep into Bengal. Again the
navy's support was vital, but the decisive element was Clive's exploitation
of the resentment of Siraj ud-Daula by Mir Jafar, his chief of staff, and his
subsequent defection at Plassey.
Financial considerations had formerly limited the size, form, and quality
of the Company's military labour but the necessity for more manpower
and greater efficiency on operations in the 1750s came to override the
desire for economy. In the case of European personnel, the difficulties of
raising sufficient numbers of men, made worse by the wastage of disease,
remained constant throughout the period, but it proved far easier and
more cost-effective to enlist larger numbers of Asian troops. Wastage rates
among Asian personnel were also lower. Moreover, the terms and condi-
tions of service were regarded as unsatisfactory by British troops whereas
indigenous personnel embraced opportunities for regular pay.
The "ideological" element of the British approach to military labour is
problematic. A comparative study of the situation in Great Britain and
in India in the eighteenth century reveals the universal assumptions the
British brought with them about recruitment and the practical demands
for manpower, diminishing notions of a specifically "Orientalist" approach
in the subcontinent. At the same time, the diversity of the regions the
British encountered, separated as they were by distinct cultures and
customs, forced the British to adapt their practices. They did so in an
entirely pragmatic fashion to achieve the primary objective of asserting
their supremacy and maintaining good order. While the British always
favoured physically tall and robust recruits from rural areas, they put more
emphasis on discipline, drill, and endurance. Experienced officers and
NCOs were preferred, but this was not limited to Europeans. The Company
army was not deployed only against the French, although this had been the
priority in the 1740s and 1750s. The army was required to protect vulnerable
lines of communication and garrison conquered areas to ensure internal
security. In Scotland, the senior officers of the army apparently regarded
recruitment as a tool to employ and therefore absorb excess manpower
in marginal areas to prevent civil disorder. The same practice may have
influenced them in India. However, it is clear that they placed loyalty high
on their agenda, and believed governments had to make their presence
felt within their territories to discourage rioting, rebellion, and raiding.
"TRUE TO THEIR SALT"
289
In India, they maintained this framework, but increasingly paid attention
to local systems of patronage and adapted recruitment accordingly. It was
perhaps significant that the commander of the Madras Presidency Army
was Yusuf Khan, a low-caste Hindu who had converted to Islam, embraced
the Company, and rose rapidly through the ranks.
Indian recruits enlisted with a set of cultural norms which the Com-
pany embraced and incorporated into their army, even though they often
misunderstood and misinterpreted the nature of local societies. While
some attempts were made to "Europeanize" their drill and appearance, the
Company agreed to recognize the ideas of "warrior castes" and incorporated
local expectations and rituals, filtered through the lens of expectations
formed by British cultural norms. This ability to transcend their own
ideological parameters and create a new synthesis of identity among their
military personnel proved to be an enduring strength of the Company
Army, but its neglect and erosion were a source of anger and frustration
that contributed to the outbreak of the Mutiny in 1857.
The conclusion that might be drawn on the character of the sepoy army
in the Carnatic Wars is that it was recruited out of necessity and emer-
gency, and was certainly modelled on the French system, but was really
a pragmatic response to an enhanced strategic threat, the need to keep
down costs, and the availability of a pool of manpower. The significance
of the Indian troops can be exaggerated and authors have tended to focus
on it because of its later proud history, or because it appeared to become
the instrument of imperial oppression. In fact, it was one tool - alongside
the Company's wealth, the initiative of its local leaders, and the presence
of the Royal Navy - that helped to neutralize its European and Asian rivals.
The purpose of the army was to fulfil the tasks of the East India Company,
namely the acquisition of trade and land revenue.
"The scum of every county, the refuse of
mankind"
Recruiting the British Army in the eighteenth century
Peter Way
"There are two ways of recruiting the British army", wrote Campbell Dal-
rymple in his 1761 military manual,
the first and most eligible [best] by volunteers, the last and worst by a
press. By the first method, numbers of good men are enrolled, but the
army is greatly obliged to levity, accident, and the dexterity of recruit-
ing officers for them; by the second plan, the country gets clear of their
banditti, and the ranks are filled up with the scum of every county, the
refuse of mankind. They are marched loaded with vice, villainy, and
chains, to their destined corps, where, when they arrive, they corrupt
all they approach, and are whipt out, or desert in a month. 1
In times of war, the fiscal-military state's appetite for soldiers proved vora-
cious. 2 The strength of the British Army in the Seven Years War swelled from
roughly 31,000 men to 117,000 (on paper or 93,000 in effective strength) from
1755 to 1762, with the army in America accounting for 30,000 of these troops
at its peak strength. 3 This did not include the numerous provincial troops
of the colonies, which numbered from nearly 10,000 to in excess of 20,000
1 Dairy mple, A Military Essay, p. 8.
2 Military mobilization constituted the greatest enterprise in European societies at this time.
The armies of the main European military powers, France, Spain, the Habsburg Empire, Prussia,
and Russia, often reached into the hundreds of thousands in times of war. John Childs estimated
that in 1756, for example, Austria's army numbered 201,000, France's 330,000, Russia's 330,000,
Prussia's 143,000, and Britain's 91,179. Even relatively small states fielded sizeable armies, such
as Hesse-Cassel (16,500), Hanover (29,000), and Wiirttemberg (12,000). In total, fourteen states
fielded 1,300,000 men, and this prior to full mobilization for the Seven Years War. See Childs,
Armies and Warfare in Europe, p. 42.
3 Conway, War, State, and Society, pp. 56-59; Pargellis, "The Four Independent Companies
of New York"; Selesky, War and Society in Colonial Connecticut, p. m. See also Lucassen and
Lucassen, "The Mobility Transition in Europe Revisited", p. 76.
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PETER WAY
men in any given year during the war. 4 The combined figure of 40,000 to
50,000 should be doubled to arrive at total combatants when considering
losses due to battlefield casualties, victims of disease or accident, desertion,
and the end of service terms. These numbers were no small matter for any
society, especially considering that the overwhelming majority of recruits
came from Britain. 5
The British Army of the eighteenth century had become a modern vol-
unteer force, with a number of qualifications. Impressment (i.e., conscrip-
tion) was the most significant departure, although it only ever generated a
distinct minority of soldiers. Britain also relied on mercenary forces hired
from independent German polities, largely to fight for its interests on the
continent, but also in the American Revolution across the Atlantic. The
army arrived at this particular configuration as the result of a number of
long-term historical processes, the first being political in nature. Through-
out the seventeenth century, England engaged in ongoing internal conflict
and regime change - civil war, regicide, creation of the Commonwealth,
restoration of the monarchy, and revolution - that occupied it at home.
But with the defeat of the Stuarts, pacification of Ireland, union with
Scotland, and, ultimately, succession of the Hanoverian regime it secured
its domestic sphere (excepting several Jacobite uprisings), and expanded
its human resources that could be turned from the plow to the sword.
Secondly, the changes in military tactics, technology, and scale associated
with the military revolution and the rise of the fiscal-military state stoked
European wars. Late to join in this acceleration of armed conflict, Britain
in the eighteenth century became a leading player, fielding ever-larger
armies and constructing a state capable of combating continental powers.
Most profoundly, the economic and social transformations associated
with the transition to capitalism positioned Britain at the forefront of
modernity in terms of waging war. The conversion of agriculture and
landholding patterns to commercial production, the expansion of handi-
craft industries through the reorganization of production, the tapping of
global trade through the creation of commercial trading companies and
expansion of the merchant fleet, and the establishment of colonies rich
in raw materials substantially enhanced the productivity of Britain's
economy, enabling it to fund grossly expensive wars. At the same time,
4 For the numbers of provincial troops requested and the number to actually take the field
between 1759 and 1762, see The Journal of Jeffery Amherst, pp. 327-331.
5 Conway estimates that 147,000 men from Britain and Ireland served in the regular army
during the Seven Years' War: War, State, and Society, p. 65.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
293
these developments, by pushing many agricultural laborers off the land
through enclosure and changes to agricultural practices, as well as many
artisans out of the trades due to the inexorable deskilling of the crafts,
created a proletariat with nothing but their labor to sell, and in times of
war the army proved an insatiable consumer of labor. Furthermore, states
fought wars of an increasingly commercial nature to maximize national
wealth through the defense of home industries, the protection of trade, and
the acquisition of colonies, their resources, and peoples. Warfare intimately
intertwined with developing capitalism, and military recruitment played
a key role in the freeing of labor power to work in the interests of capital.
Mobilization functioned as a component of the process of the "primitive
accumulation" of capital (to use Marx's term), which acted to "free" laborers
from traditional economic relationships, alienate them from control of the
means of production, and harness their labor to commercial activity that
benefited others.
The soldiers' story forms part of a broader proletarian tale, but it is also
specific to military workers. And, in the case of the British Army, even that
is not a single tale but one with many plots as Britain pulled together diverse
peoples from its dominions through force, inducements, or lack of other
options. Soldiers came from specific historical backgrounds character-
ized by particular economic and social relationships, which recruitment
necessarily disrupted, not only for the individual recruit but also for the
community from which the army extracted him. By the time of the Seven
Years War, market forces obtained in England and Wales, Scotland, and
Ireland, albeit in varying configurations, making their populations recep-
tive to recruitment and giving the British Army its modern complexion. In
the American colonies, however, the economy had not developed to this
extent and labor scarcity prevailed, meaning fewer men proved receptive
to long-term service in the regular army and recruitment met with outright
resistance, in a foreshadowing of the Revolution, although many joined the
colonial forces on yearly enlistments as a means of accumulating capital for
their own economic advancement. More than a simple contract between
an individual and institution, states, societies, cultures, and communities
negotiated military labor. The fiscal-military state thus played an important
role in the economic transformation of England and its satellites through
its harnessing of human labor to national warmaking in the interest of
commercial economic activity.
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PETER WAY
Mobilization
Military mobilization in the early modern era occurred in three ways.
States commissioned noblemen to raise a stipulated number of troops or
contracted fighting units from foreign military enterprisers, but neither pro-
vided it with direct control of the fighting force. Finally, the state compelled
men to fight through pressing those without apparent employment, crimi-
nals, and convicts, or by imposing a levy on districts or cities to field a set
number of men, a procedure that met with resistance due to its involuntary
nature. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the modern form
of mobilization had emerged, in which the nation-state directly raised and
administered a standing army. In central and eastern Europe, particularly
in Prussia, centralized systems of conscription developed which essentially
coerced military labor in wartime, whereas the Habsburg territories, France,
and Spain relied more extensively on volunteers to stock their armies. 6
The British came to depend upon volunteers due in part, paradoxically,
to its unpopularity. The army's role in the Civil War and English Revolution
engendered a fear that the military posed a potential threat to the civil
power and rights of Englishmen that had to be kept in check. The often-
unscrupulous operations of regular recruiting parties, and the periodic
adoption of press acts during wartime alienated many. To help ease these
fears the standing army relied upon annual parliamentary enabling legisla-
tion by a Mutiny Act, while the civil power regulated recruitment, and
adopted conscription only in times of need. 7
Recruits usually received a cash bounty from which to purchase a shirt
and shoes. Recruits were acquainted with the articles of war and, according
to the Mutiny Act, had to be brought before a justice of the peace or consta-
ble more than twenty-four hours after but within four days of enlistment to
attest to their willingness to join the army. If a recruit denied his willingness
to serve he had to repay the money he had received upon enlisting as well
as a penalty of 20 shillings for costs incurred by the recruiting party. Once
the party had gathered a body of recruits, they took them to a recruiting
depot or back to the regiment. Competition among regiments for troops and
the uncoordinated nature of regiment-based recruiting made recruiting
6 Redlich, The German Military Enterpriser and His Work Force; Parker, The Army of Flanders
and the Spanish Road, pp. 29-39; Childs, Armies and Warfare in Europe, pp. 49-54; Anderson,
War and Society in the Old Regime, pp. 16-32; Wilson, German Armies, p. 277; Black, European
Warfare 7660-7875, pp. 218-224.
7 Childs, "The Restoration of the Army 1660-1702", p. 53; Steppler, "The Common Soldier in
the Reign of George III", pp. 1-3.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
295
in England difficult. Death, desertion, drafting into other regiments, and
discharges meant the necessity of constant recruitment. J.A. Houlding
calculated that the regiments stationed in the British Isles had to recruit
1.5 per cent of their strength on a monthly basis during peacetime, and
2.1 per cent in wartime. Thus, regiments often found it hard to get enough
men to maintain their strength. Some recruited year-round, establishing
depots and having recruiters on permanent duty. Others turned to "crimps",
private individuals paid by regiments to perform recruiting in the stead of
a formal military recruiting party. Recruiters and, especially, crimps who
had a vested economic interest in producing recruits, did not scruple at
kidnapping men and spiriting them away to military service. 8
The British state also coerced men into the army, adopting impressment
during every major war of the eighteenth century, although it functioned in
a more limited fashion than did the naval press gang. Civil magistrates and
constables oversaw impressment, which targeted (in the words of the first
Press Act of 1756) "able bodied Men as do not follow or exercise any lawful
Calling or Employment, or have not some lawful and sufficient Support".
Such men would be brought before the commissioners to determine if they
were suitable for impressment, the officials receiving payment for each man
pressed. Owning property or possessing the right to vote protected one
from the press, as did providing a substitute. Having a large family, being
too old or infirm, bearing a good character, or having friends in high places
could extricate a man from service; a bad reputation or lack of employment
doomed him to the army. 9
The Newcastle ministry by the end of 1755 had decided to raise ten new
regiments as the Seven Years War loomed, and the need for these addi-
tional forces became more urgent in 1756 when fears of a French invasion
heightened. With the numbers of volunteers seemingly dwindling, Parlia-
ment passed a Press Act in March 1756, but the Privy Council suspended it
within a month as the invasion threat had incited enough men to volunteer.
8 Steppler, "The Common Soldier in the Reign of George III", pp. 8-18; Frey, The British Soldier
in America, pp. 3-4; Childs, The British Army of William III, pp. 108-114; Middleton, "The Recruit-
ment of the British Army", p. 228; Brewer, Sinews of Power, pp. 49-50; Houlding, Fit for Service,
pp. 125-126.
9 Press Act cited in Middleton, "The Recruitment of the British Army", p. 229; Brewer, The
Sinews of Power, pp. 49-50; Henry Moore, "A return of men inlisted at Guil[d]ford in the County
of Surr[e]y by the Commissioners and Justices", 10 April 1756, no. 1035, box 23 Loudoun Papers,
North American, Manuscript Department, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California
[henceforth, in form LO1035/23]; Gilbert, "Charles Jenkinson and the Last Army Press", p. 7,
"Army Impressment during the War of the Spanish Succession".
296
PETER WAY
However, by August upon further expansion of the army, it soon became
clear the number of volunteers had dwindled, and the government adopted a
new Press Act. This act proved less successful, and in 1757 political pressure
made Pitt abandoned it. 10 Yet London, for example, yielded 500 pressed men
in 1756 for service in the 35th Regiment alone. Coerced soldiers tended,
not surprisingly, to be less enthusiastic about military life, often deserting
from the transports before sailing and upon arrival in America. Loudoun
reported of the 35th's "raw" troops, "the prest Men, I dare not yet trust
so near the enemy", as he had six desert to the French together, two of
whom were discovered starving in the woods and promptly hanged. 11 The
army also took up reluctant troops in other manners. People convicted of a
crime received pardons contingent on enlisting in the army. Thus, William
Desborough, found guilty of stealing sheep in November 1760 and sentenced
to death at Huntingdon, earned a pardon by enlisting in a regiment of foot.
Similarly John Baker, Jeremiah Smith, Charles Dailey, and Thomas Elliott,
sentenced to death for highway robbery at Maidstone that same month,
received pardons predicated upon joining the 49th Regiment in Jamaica,
which often equated to a delayed form of capital punishment due to the
high mortality rate resulting from tropical diseases in the West Indies. 12
The Duke of Wellington, military hero of the Napoleonic wars, famously
referred to his troops as "the scum of the earth". 13 Such a negative perspec-
tive not only mirrored the point of view of British soldiers; it also persists
today among some historians of the army. 14 Such classist language not only
insults its subject; it also prevents any serious engagement with the social
background of soldiers or the historical processes by which they came to
serve in the army. Lumping them together as the residue at the bottom of
society excuses military historians from conceptualizing these men as
either historical agents or victims of power structures; they become merely
10 Middleton, "The Recruitment of the British Army", pp. 228-230; Gilbert, "Charles Jenkinson
and the Last Army Press", p. 7; Gilbert, "An Analysis of Some Eighteenth Century Army Recruiting
Records", p. 39.
11 Maj. Henry Fletcher, "A Return of a Detachment; Impressed Men; and Recruits of His
Majesties [sic] Thirty Fifth regiment of Foot", 4 Sep. 1756, LO2774/44; Loudoun to Daniel Webb,
27 March 1756, London, LO974/21; [Loudoun] to Colonel Burton, 17 Sep. 1756, LO1828/41; [Loud-
oun] To the Duke of Cumberland, 3 Oct. 1756, LO1968/44.
12 Calendar of Home Office Papers of the Reign of George III, p. 13.
13 Henry, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 14.
14 For example, Chandler and Beckett, the editors of The Oxford History of the British Army,
purport: "Soldiers were inevitably recruited from the dregs of society [...] The unattractive
features of service life which persisted until the very end of the nineteenth century were not
conducive to recruiting the more respectable elements of society" (p. xvi).
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
297
soldiers, units of a more important whole, subsumed within histories of the
army that assume nationalist discourses. Dalrymple, at least, captured the
distinction between "good men" who volunteered and the pressed "scum of
every county", though the class bias of an army officer still came through.
Closer attention to the backgrounds of recruits, however, reveals a martial
workforce that neatly mirrored the laboring classes of the era, making
soldiers more the salt of the earth than its scum.
The common conception of soldiers presumed they hailed from the
rootless mass that willingly lived idle and unproductive lives, exactly the
people for whom the state drafted vagrancy and poor laws as well as press
acts. Stripped of the moral content such a perspective contains an element
of truth. The proletariat thrust up by primitive accumulation, the people
who lived by the sweat of their labor and had a tenuous grasp on subsistence,
undoubtedly counted military service as one certain form of employment.
But they alone could never satisfy the army's demand for manpower during
wartime, especially on the scale of the Seven Years War, when recruitment
cut deeply into the British populace. At the same time, economic change
cut adrift craftsmen as well as common laborers. Periodic downturns and
the high unemployment and prices that came with them had an impact
throughout the laboring classes, while changes in the nature of craft
production undermined some artisans' ability to achieve subsistence and
rendered others surplus to their masters' need. Elsewhere I have utilized
data garnered from the Out-Pension Books of the Royal Chelsea Hospital
to explore the economic background of Britain's soldiers in the Seven Years
War, a study that revealed an unexpectedly skilled background: those with
trades accounted for almost half the men, while manual laborers made for in
excess of 40 per cent. Within the crafts three trades predominated - textile
workers, shoemakers, and tailors - crafts among the first to experience the
reorganization of production attendant upon primitive accumulation. 15
The British Army, as well as drawing soldiers from the wider laboring
classes, also cast the net widely in recruiting to fill the ranks. While in
reality an expression of English might, the army in its social composition
more exactly reflected the imperial reach of that might. Fighting on the
scale that William Pitt aspired to in the Seven Years War required an army
beyond the means of England alone, even beyond those of Great Britain.
England looked elsewhere in its dominions to man its army, to domains
already compromised by English imperialism, Scotland and Ireland, and
15 Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Disability and Royal Artillery Out-Pensions, Admission Books, Series
116, War Office Papers, PRO, UK; Way, "Rebellion of the Regulars"; Marx, Capital, pp. 784-848.
298
PETER WAY
beyond. One could argue that the British Army was the most British of
institutions by the mid-eighteenth century. Regimental returns for the
army in America in 1757 reveal an ethnically heterogeneous rank and file.
The English-born accounted for 29.7 per cent of the whole, Scots 27.3 per
cent, Irish 27.3 per cent, and continental Europeans 4.3 per cent. Colonials
made up 5.3 per cent of the army, while foreign-born residents of America
equaled 5.7 per cent (see Table 10.1 and Chart 10.1).
Table 10.1 Nativity of NCOs and Private Soldiers in America, 1757
Foreign-
Ameri-
Foreign-
ers
can
ers
en-
Coloni-
enlisted
listed in
English
Scottish
Irish
als
in Europe
America
Total
No. %
No. %
No. %
No. %
No. %
No. %
4212 29.8
3873 27.4
3874 27.4
755 5.3
607 4.3
803 5.7
14124
Sources: LO4011/no. 1/90; L06695/99; L02533/no. 4/90; L02529/no. 1/90; LO4012/no. 1/90; L01944
no. 5/90; LO 6616/88; L01683/no. 1/90; L05661/85; L01391/no. 1/90; L01384/no. 2/90; L03936/
no. 1/90; L06639/89; L01345/no. 5/90; L06616/88; LO4068/no. 2/90; Return of Four Independent
Companies, 15 July 1757, L06616/88.The returns represented 14,124 common soldiersand
noncommissioned officers of the army in America's total strength of approximately 20,000 men.
See Brumwell, Redcoats, p. 20.
Chart 10.1
□ English
S Scottish
Z Irish
■ American Colonials
0 Foreigners enlisted in Europe
□ Foreigners enlisted in America
Given the relative populations of these elements of Greater Britain, it is
clear that Scotland and Ireland disproportionately manned the army.
27,4%
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
299
Working from population estimates for the respective nations (see Table
10.2), each soldier born in England or Wales (Welsh soldiers are typically
subsumed with the English in army returns) who served in the regular
army in America in 1757 represented 1,599 inhabitants of their homeland.
By comparison every Irish soldier served for 824 fellow Irish people, whereas
a Scottish soldier left only 327 Scots proportionately at home. Thus, an
Irishman was roughly twice as likely and a Scottish male five times as
likely to serve in the American army than an Englishman or Welshman.
Furthermore, the data estimated total population, male and female, so to
arrive at a true approximate service ratio we need to halve those figures,
meaning that English and Welsh men had a likelihood of 1 in 800 of serving
in the American army, Irish 1 in 422, and Scots 1 in 164. Moreover, the ratio
for Scots overstates the case, as the majority of recruits were drawn from
the Highlands, which was less populous than the Lowlands. Finally, these
calculations do not take into account those soldiers serving within Great
Britain, on the European continent, in the West Indies, or elsewhere in the
British Empire. Clearly the male populations of Ireland and Scotland had
been harnessed to the British war machine, disproportionate contributions
that resulted from specific historical developments. Mobilization thus took
place in distinct settings, operating differently in and having a differential
impact on each locale. A review of the main theatres of mobilization makes
this clear, but also reveals a central thread in the process: the interconnect-
edness of the raising of armies and economic transformations associated
with the emergence of capitalism taking place within these societies.
Table 10.2 Population ratios by nativity for British NCOs and private soldiers in
America, 1757
Population*
Year
No. of
Soldiers
Ratio to
population
England and
Wales
6,736,000
1760/1
4,212
1:1,599
Scotland
1,265,000
1755
3,873
1:327
Ireland
3,191,000
1754
3,874
1:824
*Source: Mitchell, British Historical Statistics, p. 8.
The fact that soldiers came from all ranks of laboring classes and across the
empire means that any engagement with the military as a socioeconomic
institution must make allowance for the contingencies of different histori-
300
PETER WAY
cal class experiences. At the same time, the commercialization of human
relationships strikes a recurring theme in these different histories. Such
change weakened or severed peoples' grasp on subsistence attained by
working the land or plying a trade, as a result preparing them for wage labor
including that in the army.
England, military metropole
Linda Colley maintained that the series of wars between Britain and France
from 1689 to 1815 constructed Britishness, a sense of difference from those
people outside Great Britain, largely founded upon Protestantism and forged
in warfare, which connected its different parts together.' 6 Colley's model has
been criticized for its exaggeration of the integrating powers of Protestant-
ism, her timing of the real unification of national interests within Great
Britain, and, most tellingly, its Anglocentrism. In many ways, Britain should
be understood as England writ large. England constituted the heart of the
British dominions. England's Parliament controlled Wales and Scotland
from 1707, and retained final authority over the Irish Parliament. The fiscal-
military state operated essentially in the interest of England in harvesting
taxes and duties from across its possessions, and developing military policy
with the defense of England as its main priority. English diplomats crafted
foreign policy to ensure the established Protestant religion, promoted
trade that primarily benefited England, and protected the interests of the
Hanoverian regime. And, when diplomacy failed, England's politicians set
the country on a war footing, dragging Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and its
other dependencies along too. Fighting wars, however, constituted one area
where the English willingly shared the effort and the results.
The opening of hostilities with the French in the Seven Years War and
the rapid escalation in the scale of mobilization sent recruiting parties out
across England in a quest to satisfy the need for military manpower. The
press played a role but voluntarism proved essential to the war effort. Why
men willingly enlist to fight in wars is a question that has long intrigued
military historians. Patriotism immediately suggests itself, and one should
not underestimate its power in an era that witnessed the emergence of
strong nationalist and imperialist currents in British culture. 17 Just as often,
historians note that recruits joined up for adventure, or in flight from
16 Colley, Britons, pp. 3-6, 9, 11-19, 38-46, 55"57-
17 Wilson, "Empire ofVirtue".
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
301
boring laboring life, overbearing parents, a demanding master, a clinging
love interest, or the law. The fact that most recruits were youths in their
late teens to early twenties supports the wanderlust explanation. As well,
economic necessity prompted enlistment, according to historians of early
modern armies. At times of poor harvests and high prices, unemployed or
underemployed individuals without the means to support themselves opted
for the wage, food, and clothing of the soldier. 18
But one must be wary of perceiving a whiplash effect between immediate
short-term economic depression and military enlistment. Recruitment
cannot be measured by a price index. Long-term economic forces played
the primary role, restructuring economies in ways that increased produc-
tivity and created a labor surplus that both helped to pay for wars and
produced the manpower necessary to do the fighting. And the English
agrarian economy proved so productive that it required fewer people to
work the land, thus freeing others to work in industry, or indeed the army. 19
As the leading commercial nation of Europe, England led the way in the
capitalist reconfiguration of society. Agricultural improvement, including
the enclosure and conversion of common lands to market production, the re-
organization of production within certain trades, and the resultant creation
of a landless, tradeless proletariat provided the army with a ready supply
of recruits, willing or not. Moreover, England suffered economic depres-
sion and incidents of famine beginning in 1756, leading to unemployment,
strikes, bread riots, and general discontent at exactly the time recruitment
ramped up for the Seven Years War. 20 James Wolfe, sent with troops to
quell disturbances among Gloucester weavers late in 1756, expressed some
sympathy with their situation in letters to his mother. "The obstinacy of the
poor, half-starved weavers of broad-cloth that inhabit this extraordinary
country is surprising. They beg about the country for food, because, they say,
the masters have beat down their wages too low to live upon, and I believe
it is a just complaint." At the same time, he recognized their desperation
could prove a bonus for the army. "I hope it will turn out a good recruiting
party, for the people are so oppressed, so poor and so wretched, that they
18 Anderson, War and Society in the Old Regime, pp. 46, 121-123; Steppler, "The Common Soldier
in the Reign of George III", pp. 32-35; Guy, "The Army of the Georges", p. 95.
19 Wrigley, "Society and the Economy in the Eighteenth Century", pp. 72-73, 76-81, 89-91.
20 Rule, The Vital Century, pp. 102-104, no, 147-148, The Labouring Classes in Early Industrial
England, pp. 256-259; Malcolmson, Life and Labour in England, pp. 113, 125; Hayter, The Army
and the Crowd, pp. 84-87; Brewer, The Sinews of Power, pp. 52-53.
302
PETER WAY
will perhaps hazard a knock on the pate for bread and clothes, and turn
soldiers through sheer necessity." 21
Stay and starve in England only to get a knock on the head for protesting
your condition, or join the army; many faced this conundrum in the Seven
Years War. Merchant capital required armed forces to secure and defend
its interests, and the changes initiated by capital accumulation - both in
the long-term structural changes that freed labor power and in the short-
term economic crises that undercut subsistence - generated capital's own
martial labor force. The fact that Britain rose to the status of most advanced
economic power and the dominant military power in the mid-eighteenth
century derived from no mere coincidence. This story, so familiar from read-
ing Marx and the great British Marxist historians, 22 proves more complex,
for remember that only three in ten soldiers in the British Army in America
came from England. Viewing the British army as simply the product of
internal English economic developments obscures the heterogeneity of the
very institution, and the multiple sources of manpower it tapped to wage
war, each a product of particular historical forces.
Scotland, the military plantation
"I am for always having in our army as many Scottish soldiers as possible",
William Wildman, Lord Barrington, the member of Parliament for the
border town Berwick-upon-Tweed, avowed to the House of Commons in 1751,
"not that I think them more brave than those of any other country we can
recruit from, but because they are generally more hardy and less mutinous;
and of all Scottish soldiers I should choose to have and keep in our army
as many Highlanders as possible." Whereas Colley reads this comment as
a measure of Scotland's successful integration into Great Britain, Andrew
Mackillop believes Barrington's views reflected Britain's "cannon-fodder
policy", whereby in the aftermath of the failed Jacobite uprising of 1745-1746,
Britain harnessed Gaelic militarism to its overseas imperial interests, but
not until the Seven Years War did Britain's policy of stripping the Highlands
to wage its wars become fully realized. 23
21 Wolfe to his mother, n.d. Nov. 1756, Wolfe to his mother, 24 Oct. 1756, in Willson, The Life
and Letters of James Wolfe, pp. 304-306.
22 Here, I will only mention E. P. Thompson and the "bible" of labor history, The Making of the
English Working Class.
23 Barrington cited in Colley, Britons, p. 125; Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", p. 58.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
303
The fact that English military policy had a direct impact on the govern-
ance of Scotland in general and the Highlands in particular derived from
the Act of Union and the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. The British
Army played a central role in the Highlands, forming six independent
Highland companies in 1725 to police the region and build roads to make
the "savage" Highlands more accessible to British rule and commerce. In
1739, it formed four further companies, and the ten companies combined to
form the Black Watch, the first regiment of Highland troops incorporated
within the regular army. In 1745, John Campbell, 4th Earl of Loudoun
(commander-in-chief in America, 1756-1758), formed a second regiment. 24
In the short term, British Army recruitment in the Highlands remained
inseparable from the repression of the Jacobite threat, finally laid to rest on
Culloden field in 1746. The army then raided the territories of rebels, taking
prisoners, disarming suspected rebels, laying waste crops, and confiscating
livestock. Trials were held and more than 100 captives executed for treason,
and many more were transported to the colonies as indentured servants or
to serve as troops in regiments stationed abroad. The British government
adopted a number of legislative measures intended to subordinate the
Highlands, confiscating rebel lands, disarming the populace, banning the
wearing of tartans, regulating the practice of religion, and reforming the
legal system. The army played a central role in reclamation of the Highlands,
becoming the British state's most powerful expression in this region tainted
by rebellion. 25 The threat of Jacobitism had directed government policy
into a military sphere, and ensured the persistence of a cultural form, clan-
ship, that it was meant to eradicate. In the process, England ghettoized the
Highlands as "an imperial-military reservoir". 26
Britain then set about reorganizing the region's economy on the pattern
of commercial agricultural production developing in England, establishing
the Board of Annexed Estates to manage the thirteen estates annexed to
the crown (other confiscated properties were auctioned off to pay debts). It
also shouldered the task of "improving" the Highland agricultural economy
by converting clan patterns of land management to a more commercial
24 Plank, Rebellion and Savagery, pp. 18-21; Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 13-20,
22, 29.
25 Youngson, After the Forty-Five, pp. 25-26; Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 13; Plank, Rebellion and
Savagery, pp. 1-3, 6.
26 Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 39-40. Scots also had a history of service in
continental armies, particularly that of France. See McCorry, "Rats, Lice and Scotchmen".
304
PETER WAY
basis. 27 It soon developed a program that set about shortening leases, pro-
moting single-tenant farms of sufficient size to produce market surpluses,
establishing security of tenure, removing surplus farm labor, restricting
subtenure and evicting unwanted tenantry, better managing husbandry,
and developing new villages. These acts led to large-scale eviction in
some areas and sparked fears of depopulation. In 1760, the commissioners
proposed "the propagation of a hardy and industrious race, fit for serving
the public in war". 28 This position merely recognized an ongoing process
by which military service absorbed much of the surplus labor generated by
changes to the Highland economy.
With the outbreak of hostilities with France, concern over the use of
Highland troops dissipated, and William Pitt, who took power in November
1756, decided to raise two new battalions of Highland troops from clans
that had followed the Stuarts. Fortuitously, just as economic depression
in England had facilitated mobilization, so did famine in Scotland in 1757.
Another Highland battalion formed in 1758, two more in 1759, and by
war's end ten new battalions of Highlanders had been raised, making the
Highlands much more militarized than the Lowlands. 29 The Press Act also
dragooned Highlanders into the army. In April 1756, with the act about to
go into effect, the commissioners of supply and justices of the peace in the
County of Inverness decided to canvas the gentlemen of the various districts
to identify men to draw up a list of "fitt and proper" men to press into the
North American service. A return of troops in the 42nd Regiment present
at Schenectady, New York, the next year indicates that Highland justices
had in some instances to resort to the last method, as thirty-five men were
recorded as serving the six-year term of pressed men. 30
To understand Scottish recruiting, however, it must be situated in its
socioeconomic environment. The country's population was essentially
stagnant, growing at just 0.6 per cent in 1750-1800 (half of England's rate),
meaning that recruitment constituted a net loss demographically. 31 At the
27 See Plank, Rebellion and Savagery, p. 12; Youngson, After the Forty-Five, pp. 26-27; Machines,
"Scottish Gaeldom", p. 71.
28 Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 77-83; quotation from Hints Towards a Plan for
Managing the Forfeited Estates, cited on pp. 89-90.
29 Middleton, "The Recruitment of the British Army", pp. 226-231, 234, 237; Mackillop, "More
Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 46-50, 229; Middleton, "A Reinforcement for North America".
30 Commissioners of Supply and Justices of the Peace, Extract minutes, 5, 6 April 1756,
LO1017/22; Francis Grant, List of the men of the 42nd Regiment who have Inlisted for a Term of
Years according to the Press Act, 16 April 1757, LO4214/74.
31 Houston, "The Demographic Regime", pp. 12-13, 20-21.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
305
time of recruitment for the Seven Years War, Scotland as a whole possessed
a three-tiered rural social structure of landlords, tenants, and landless
laborers. Land constituted the key to subsistence in what was still es-
sentially a peasant society with greater similarities to mainland Europe
than to England. 32 In the rural Lowlands, the social structure rested on
ferm-touns, which ranged from small units of twenty families or fewer to
some the size of villages. Usually tenants rented the lands in the touns by
leasehold from an absent landlord, with a smattering of owner-occupiers
evident in some areas. A toun could be held by one tenant or by several with
holdings of varying sizes, larger in the south-east, whereas in the north-east
smallholdings proved more common. Cottars (families that held small plots
of land by subtenure) mostly worked the land, owing duties to the tenant or
landowner. Servants engaged for six months to a year in full-time service,
who often came from cottar families and could eventually set themselves
up as such, also performed agricultural labor. Changes in the eighteenth
century favored tenants and owner-occupiers, with their hold on the land
being restrained only by terms of lease, and ordinary people's access to the
land became limited. The number of touns held by a single tenant grew in
number. They consolidated their holdings and enclosed lands to convert
to pasture for their sole use. This erosion of common rights deprived cot-
tars and subtenants of land, converting them to employees of landlords or
tenants. Still smallholdings persisted everywhere, and in some areas so did
the old heterogeneous holding, common rights pattern. In the northeast
counties of Banff, Kincardine, and Aberdeen, the rise of crofting meant that
people farmed small strips of land but also worked part-time for farmers
through economic need. Crofters came to replace cottars. 33
The dwindling availability of land meant people often combined farming of
smallholdings with wages earned from labor on farms, as craftsmen, or in the
building trade. Rural underemployment became common especially outside
the peak farm work seasons, and this pushed people into paid employment,
bringing them into competition with tradespeople, especially in cloth manu-
facture. Weavers often experienced slack periods and had to find employment
elsewhere. Outside towns little full-time manufacturing work existed, except
in the mining and salt industries. The linen industry, which doubled produc-
tion about every twenty to twenty-five years between 1730 and 1800, depended
on finding cheap, exploitable labor, and developed a putting-out model of
production whereby the raw materials were sent out to rural workers for
32 Devine, "Introduction", p. 2.
33 Gray, "The Social Impact of Agrarian Change in the Rural Lowlands", pp. 53-61.
306
PETER WAY
spinning. In the 1730S-1740S, spinning increasingly encroached on the north
and the Highlands. The craft career path broke down and journeymen became
lifelong wageworkers. Journeymen's societies emerge by the early eighteenth
century and, later, permanent organizations arose among such trades as tailors
and shoemakers. Rising prices caused the most disputes, leading to calls for
higher wages, but typically the state backed the capitalist. 34
In the Highlands the bale or clachan, the traditional township and basis
of settlement and management, functioned essentially as a communalis-
tic, multi-tenanted farm managed by tacksmen, who leased lands from
clan leaders and sub-leased portions to clan members. From the 1730s,
landowners, who viewed traditional clan practices as an impediment to
improvement, began eliminating the bale along with tacksmen in the move
to single-tenant farms and crofting communities of individual smallhold-
ings and common pasture. The defeat at Culloden freed clan leaders to
pursue progress and break down the communalistic ethos of the clans,
in the process subordinating Scottish Gaeldom to the market and British
imperialism. 35 Military recruitment played an important role in the process.
For the Highland elite, recruiting regiments constituted the main means
of "colonizing" the resources of the British fiscal-military state. Recruiting
targeted those on the margins of the Highland economy, not established
tenants or proven rent-payers. Faced with rising recruitment bounties,
landlords sought to transfer the costs of recruiting to their main tenants by
asking them to fill quotas or pay for substitutes. These men resisted because
recruitment drained the very manpower they required to commercialize
their holdings, drove up wages, and made them maintain subtenants and
cottars on the land to satisfy landlord levies rather than to evict them
and improve the land. 36 Also, the need for recruits meant that those at
the bottom of Highland society wielded some control over the terms of
enlistment. Landlords faced with scarcity felt compelled to offer favorable
terms to recruits. Enlistment bounties exceeded the amount allowed by
the government in the late 1750s. Those without sufficient liquid capital
had to grant land in place of monetary bounties, either securing existing
landholdings or promising grants of new land upon returning home from
service. In return for providing military recruits, subtenants demanded to
34 Whatley, "The Experience of Work", pp. 228-230, 233-234; Fraser, "Patterns of Protest", p. 278.
35 Dodgshon, "West Highland and Hebridean Settlement Prior to Crofting and the Clearances";
Macinnes, "Scottish Gaeldom", pp. 70-72, 75-76.
36 Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 84-88, 101, 103, 107-109, 132-133, 139-140, 144,
155-156, 169-173-
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
307
hold land directly from the landlord, and thus circumvented tacksmen. Thus
recruitment, in part a matter of landlord coercion, also proved a means of
social advancement for the subtenantry. 37 Recruiting raised the expecta-
tions of landless and subtenant groups, and these were met by subdivision
of the land. Mackillop concludes that "one of recruitment's most important
social effects lay in the fact that it undermined the hierarchical structure
of Highland farms and expedited the emergence of crofting". 38 Good in
the short term in that it expanded access to land by the lowest ranks of
highland society, in the long term, however, it led directly to the Highland
Clearances in the postwar era.
The Jacobite revolt of 1745-1746 provided the British fiscal-military state
the wedge with which to pry open the Highlands for economic improvement.
Military recruitment played a key role in that improvement, skimming off
former rebels and the common people uprooted by the commercialization
of the Highland economy. While lairds and recruits alike exploited the
capital generated by the military leviathan, in the end the army's needs
transformed the region and the clearances followed in its train. At the same
time, Scots came to play a central role in the British Army and Highlanders
crafted a unique military persona, with the tartan becoming as much a
symbol of British militarism as the red coat. 39
Ireland, island garrison
Ireland's relation to the fiscal-military state differed from that of Scotland in
that it did not serve primarily as a military plantation that produced troops
for Britain's overseas military enterprise. The army officially did not recruit
Irish Catholics and only enlisted Irish Protestants during wartime, although
significant numbers of Irish did enter the army. The island functioned first
and foremost as a military depot and source of funds to support British
militarism. By stationing 12,000 soldiers there in times of peace, amounting
to more than one-third of the peacetime army, England could maintain
a large force without immediately threatening the homeland but easily
within reach in times of need. 40 Moreover, by placing these regiments on
37 Ibid., pp. 84-88, 107-108, 157-160.
38 Ibid., pp. 129, 162-163, 166.
39 Allan Macinnes estimates the army recruited 48,000 men from the Highlands from the
beginning of the Seven Years' War to the end of the Napoleonic Wars: "Scottish Gaeldom", p. 83.
40 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 45.
308
PETER WAY
the Irish establishment paid for by taxation set by Ireland's Parliament,
Britain colonized its resources and expropriated its wealth. Finally given
the troubled history between the English and Irish, garrisoning 12,000
troops on the island made them a de facto occupying force, suppressing Irish
Catholics, and elevating Irish Protestants, but keeping both subordinate to
Britain. Ireland's unique role resulted from its particular history of coloniza-
tion by, rebellion against, and religious strife with England.
England viewed Ireland, unlike Scotland or Wales, as a colony. More so than
other British colonies, however, its history involved successive invasions and
military conquest. First came the wave of Anglo-Norman invaders, followed
by "New English" colonizers of Ireland in the period 1560-1660. The rebellion
of 1641 led to the Cromwellian reconquest and the imposition of a Protestant
ascendancy. The English Revolution and the defeat of James II and VII by
William of Orange's Protestant armies handed control of provincial power
and land to the Anglo-Irish ratified in the Treaty of Limerick of 1692, and
there soon followed a series of penal laws restricting the political, economic,
and social rights of Catholics. 41 Unlike Scotland, however, Ireland retained
its parliament, although first Catholics and then Presbyterians would lose
the franchise, making it an expression of Anglo-Irish will. This became the
body nominally overseeing the Irish establishment of the British Army.
The English Disbanding Act of 1699 set the Irish establishment at 12,000,
where it remained until 1769 (although at given times a number of regiments
could be on duty elsewhere in the empire). During peacetime, desertion,
death, and the old and infirm serving in the ranks vitiated its nominal
strength, reducing the number of effective soldiers by as much as a quarter.
Conversely, during wartime, the establishment expanded, for example,
reaching 17,000 for a period in 1756-1757 and 24,000 from 1761 to the peace
in 1763. 42 As it had before the Treaty of Limerick, the Irish Parliament
dominated by the Anglo-Irish paid for the army from its revenues, yet had
no control over the number of troops or the expense, as a royal proclamation
applied the act to Ireland. Here nakedly appears Ireland's colonial status
in military matters. The Lord Lieutenant, the king's civil representative in
Ireland, also acted as a military governor, but exerted limited control over
this force. The regiments remained subject to the British Mutiny Act, and
their primary functions entailed the defense of England and the provision
41 James, Ireland in the Empire 7688-7770, pp. 22-25, 5 2 . 234-236, 289-291; Linebaugh and Rediker,
The Many-Headed Hydra, p. 57; Canny, "Identity Formation in Ireland", pp. 159-160; Pittock,
Inventing and Resisting Britain, p. 49; Connolly, Divided Kingdom, pp. 197-203.
42 Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 24.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
309
of reserve military forces for deployment elsewhere at the expense of the
Irish. Only in the 1740s did Britain place regiments sent abroad from Ireland
on the English establishment and assume their expense. The Anglo-Irish
derived patronage opportunities from it, such as the awarding of commis-
sions and contracts for supplies. Unlike the Scottish example, though, the
Anglo-Irish did not directly tap the resources of the British fiscal-military
state, instead colonizing the Irish in general through additional taxes. 43
The British government profited substantially, but from the perspective
of many Irish, however, the army must have seemed like a giant parasite.
The "Irish" army was Irish in name only. In 1701, Britain proscribed Catho-
lics from serving in the army. Catholics did join the army unofficially, but
they had to abjure their faith when enlisting. 44 Many Irish Catholics, in fact,
demonstrated their true allegiance by enlisting with Britain's enemies. 45
Britain also normally rejected Irish Protestants from army service: first
to ensure Catholics did not enter the army by claiming to be Protestant;
and, secondly, as Presbyterians comprised two-thirds of Irish Protestants,
to keep out suspected dissenters. During wartime, however, manpower
needs overrode these concerns and the army recruited Irish Protestants. 46
The Irish army, then, amounted to a force of 12,000 English and Scottish
troops garrisoned in Ireland and paid for by the Irish through taxation set
by the Irish Parliament, which exerted minimal control over the army. Some
historians have argued that the combination of penal laws and a standing
army did not make Ireland a police state, 47 but the presence of this many
soldiers makes it hard not to view the army as an occupying force.
Ireland's economy in the eighteenth century experienced similar
changes to those in Scotland and England, with the expansion of com-
mercial agriculture, the development of new manufacturing activities,
and the reorganization of traditional forms of craft production producing
surplus labor that elsewhere armies would partially absorb. Yet political and
religious reasons prohibited paid military labor as an option for many set
43 Guy, "The Irish Military Establishment", pp. 212-214, 216-217; Childs, "The Restoration of the
Army", p. 51; Connolly, Divided Kingdom, pp. 322-323; Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil",
pp. 23-24; James, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 174-178, 181-182, 210-211.
44 James, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 264-265; Guy, "The Irish Military Establishment", pp. 217, 229.
45 Pittock, Inventing and Resisting Britain, pp. 49-50; Murtagh, "Irish Soldiers Abroad"; Con-
nolly, Divided Kingdom, pp. 89-90, 286-290, 375-376.
46 Guy, "The Irish Military Establishment", pp. 2vj-2ig;]ames, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 178-180;
Mackillop, "More Fruitful than the Soil", pp. 23-24; Houlding, Fit for Service, p. 46.
47 James, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 289-291; Guy, "The Irish Military Establishment", p. 219;
Houlding, Fit for Service, pp. 46-47.
310
PETER WAY
free from the soil and trades. A quick look at Irish economic development
identifies the factors that lay behind enlistment when war opened the door
to military service for many A landed aristocracy urban and rural middle
classes, and lower classes of peasants and laborers comprised the Irish social
structure. By 1700, most landlords came from the Anglican Anglo-Irish, as
the penal laws restricted Catholics landholding in a number of ways, while
the middle class was more heterogeneous. 48 Catholics formed the majority
of the lower classes, particularly those that tilled the soil, and dominated
the countryside. Peasant society had been organized communally into a
clachan, a pattern similar to that in Scotland. A group of families leased
the land collectively with each getting equal access to land for tillage and
pasture in a system called rundale. From the seventeenth century, this
arrangement came under increasing pressure from ongoing broad shifts
in land management wrought by those who wished to farm the land for
commercial purposes, most notably by enclosing tilled land for pasturage
of sheep and later livestock. The commercial pressures began the breakup
of the peasantry. Some proved able to transform into small tenants with
enough land and livestock to farm on their own and pay cash rent. The
majority became laborers, most of whom held only small pieces of land they
rented with labor, while the rest sold their labor to pay cash rent for small
plots in the conacre system. "In both cases, however", according to Sean
Connolly, "their true position was of a rural proletariat exchanging their
labour for the means of subsistence." 49 The relationship between landlord
and tenant also altered as a result of the commercialization of land use.
Landowners tended to lease their lands in blocks to middlemen who then
rented the lands to peasants for a profit, often squeezing too much out
of those who worked the land, rendering them vulnerable to even minor
problems affecting the Irish economy. 50
Ireland experienced repeated crises of subsistence with famines occur-
ring in 1720-1721 and 1728-1729, but most devastatingly in 1740-1741, which
caused mortality comparable to the Great Famine of the 1840s. The harvest
failure of 1756-1757 must also have played a role in the recruitment of the
army. 51 Commentators at the time have pointed to the shift from tillage
48 James, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 219-225.
49 Connolly, Divided Kingdom, pp. 349, 350, 358, 359, 361-362 ("rural proletariat"), 358-359;
Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, pp. 27-28.
50 Connolly again disputes this contention, arguing that the transition had been ongoing
for some time and that in reality most of Ireland was better suited to pasturage. See Connolly,
Divided Kingdom, pp. 347-348, 350-351.
51 Ibid., pp. 344-346, 359; Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra, p. 187.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
311
to pasturage for commercial purposes as a root cause of Irish poverty
and social dislocation. 52 Landlords enhanced productivity in large part
by weakening the bond between peasants and the soil: by enclosing and
consolidating the land; appointing middlemen tenants to further exploit
smallholders; shortening leases to an annual basis; and charging excessive
or "rack" rents, among other tactics. The net effect was to force people onto
ever-smaller pieces of land for cultivation with their only recourse to find
paid employment of a temporary or permanent nature. This cottier class
grew over the century. Some lost all ties to the land and joined a swelling
proletariat that sought work where it could be found, on large farms, in
urban centres, or across the Irish Sea, and, indeed, in the military of one
power or another. 53 Peasants suffered under this yoke for the most part,
but periodically rose up against landlords and improvers using clandestine
collective violence to seek to roll back change, most notably in the Houghers
campaign of agrarian terror of 1711-1712 and the Whiteboys movement that
emerged in 1761. 54
Ireland's small but developing manufacturing sector provided a main
source of employment for the displaced agrarian classes as well as crafts-
men. Many of Ireland's products came from agriculture. Improved farms
produced beef, butter, grain, and (indirectly) beer and flour for urban
consumption and, more importantly, for the international provision trade
(including supplying the army). The manufacturing sector developed
somewhat more slowly, and British trade restrictions have often received
the blame, especially the Woolens Act of 1699, which prohibited the export
of wool and woolen cloth from anywhere but England. This situation un-
doubtedly harmed the weaving trade, and protests against the act occurred
periodically. Still, wool production for the domestic market remained an
important industry. Much of the weaving into cloth took place rurally on
the putting-out model, with women spinning yarn in their households.
Production soared with the abandonment of the English import duty in
1739. 55
Linen manufacture concentrated in Ulster constituted the leading sector
in the economy. Irish linen production took off with the immigration of
52 Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power, pp. 49-50.
53 James, Ireland in the Empire, p. 217; Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, pp. 27-28, 34, 217-218;
Beames, Peasants and Power, pp. 6-13; Mokyr, Why Ireland Starved, pp. 144-147.
54 Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power, pp. 52, 201, 219, "The Houghers", Divided Kingdom,
pp. 300-302; Smyth, The Men of No Property, pp. 33-35, 44; Beames, Peasants and Power, p. 155.
55 Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power, pp. 50-52, Divided Kingdom, p. 346;James, Ireland in the
Empire, pp. 201-203.
312
PETER WAY
English and Scots, and by the 1670s large-scale commercial production was
already evident. In 1696, England removed import duty on Irish linen and in
1705 allowed direct export to other colonies. Economic growth transformed
northeastern Ireland. Ulster's eastern counties came to depend on linen
manufacture to the degree that they became net importers of food. Petty
producers working in households carried on weaving using their own
yarn or that purchased on the market, sometimes employing journeymen
weavers. The spinning of yarn and weaving of coarse linen spread west
and south of Ulster, while elsewhere farmers raised livestock and crops
to support industrial towns. The Ulster economy became overdependent
on linen and subject to shock when trade worsened, more so in the east
where agriculture had largely been abandoned. 56 When the economy took a
downturn in Ulster, some chose to cross the Atlantic to escape, as occurred
in 1718-1729 when thousands left as a result of poor harvests, famine, rising
tithes, and problems within the linen trade. 57 The Irish economy prospered
in the 1730s as the linen trade grew. Conacre continued spreading, with land
subdivided to provide small lots for weavers' subsistence needs. This system
also exposed them to any agricultural disruption as happened in 1740,
when crop failure caused food prices and rents to rise, famine set in, and
the linen trade declined. This crisis prompted another wave of migration,
many indenturing themselves to get to the colonies. 58 As the linen industry
matured, more weavers were unable to set themselves up as independent
producers. All those people who depended on the industry, the women
who spun the linen and farmers who grew food to feed the linen workers,
also suffered when trade did. Desperation led some to join the Oakboys or
Hearts of Oak, formed in 1763 to protest economic conditions. 59
Irish economic development in the eighteenth century had a negative im-
pact on many. While national wealth and consumption grew substantially
from 1700 to 1760, it did so for those already better off. The majority lived a
subsistence existence and poverty pervaded society. Cottiers found them-
selves more vulnerable to their landlords, while the urban poor crowded
into slums in the major cities. 60 The spread of commercial agriculture and
manufacturing set many adrift. This proved particularly the case at times
56 Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power, pp. 51-52, Divided Kingdom, pp. 351-352, 354-356; Griffin,
The People with No Name, pp. 25-32.
57 Griffin, The People with No Name, pp. 65-79, 88-89, 90-94, 97.
58 Ibid., pp. 159-160.
59 Connolly, Divided Kingdom, pp. 302-303.
60 James opined that, on the whole, conditions for the Irish poor were worse than in England:
James, Ireland in the Empire, pp. 212, 222-224.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
313
of economic dislocation, such as the years 1756-1757 when bad harvests and
high prices prevailed, coincidentally the time when recruitment for the
Seven Years War first spiked. 61
The Seven Years War affected the army in Ireland early on. The two
regiments sent to North America with General Edward Braddock in 1755,
the 44th and 48th, had come from the Irish establishment at a peacetime
strength of 310 rank-and-file. Drafting 420 men from regiments in Britain
and Ireland brought each of the two units to 520 before they left Cork. 62 Such
drafting became the norm throughout the war whenever the government
ordered reinforcements for North America; whether for existing regiments
rotated across the Atlantic or newly raised units, drafts from those forces
remaining behind brought them up to strength. 63 The escalating demand
for fighting men prompted the dispatch of ever more troops from the Irish
establishment: in September 1756, the 22nd Regiment and drafts from the
twelve Irish battalions; and in 1757 the 17th, 27th, 28th, 43rd, and 46th
Regiments, as well as further drafts. 64 In turn, the remaining units in
Ireland found it necessary to recruit so as to return to strength. To meet
these additional manpower demands, Whitehall decided to lift the ban on
enlisting Irish Protestants, seemingly as early as 1756. In April of that year, a
lieutenant of the Royal American Regiment complained that recruiting for
the new unit in Ireland had been very difficult as twenty-four companies
were to be raised for service and 1,600 men had already been enlisted,
making for thin pickings. And, in August, the Earl of Halifax reported that
1,100 men had been raised in Ireland to fill up the regiments in America. 65
The large number of Irish in the American army by the summer of 1757
attests to the rapid recruitment of Protestants in the short time since the
prohibition had been lifted. The regiments sent from the Irish establishment
in 1756-1757 for which returns survive exhibited the highest proportion of
Irish soldiers: the 17th (39.8 per cent), 22nd (41.4 per cent), 27th (45.8 per
cent), and 28th (56.3 per cent). The Irish also accounted for 33.9 per cent of
61 Connolly, Religion, Law, and Power, p. 137.
62 T[homas] Robinson [1st Baron Grantham], Circular to the Governors in North America, 26
Oct. 1754, LO503/11 and T. Robinson to Gov. Shirley and Sir Wm. Pepperell, 26 Oct. 1754, LO504/11;
Maj. Gens. Abercromby and Webb to Loudoun, [26 Oct. 1756], 5832/47.
63 On drafting, see, e.g., Henry Fox to Gov. Lawrence, 14 Aug. 1756, LO1486/34. On desertion,
see, e.g., Barrington to Loudoun, 15 June 1757, LO3837/85; D. McDonald, A Return of the Men
left by the 62d. Regmt. in Ireland, 19 Dec. 1757, LO5042 no. 1/111]; D. McDonald, A Return of the
number of men found in Ireland belonging to the 62d. Regmt., 18 Dec. 1757, LO5042 no. 5/111.
64 Brumwell, Redcoats, pp. 19-20.
65 George Brereton [to Loudoun], 8 April 1756, LO1026/23; Dunk [George Montagu, 2nd Earl
of] Halifax, 13 Aug. 1756, LO1478/33; Hiasinte de Bonneville, 28 March 1757, LO3192/70.
314
PETER WAY
the four companies of the New York Independent Regiment, a clear indica-
tion of the recruiting of Irish natives in the American colonies. 66
Irish Protestants (and clandestine Catholics), dammed up as a source
of military labor by imperial policy much of the time, flowed fairly evenly
throughout the army once the war-induced need for men opened the sluice
gates. The Irish did not attain the same prominent profile in the army as
did Highlanders. The contingent basis of their enlistment made them seem
more a last resort, while the bogeyman of Catholicism complicated their
relation to the British. Nonetheless, in the Seven Years War, they formed
a significant component of the army, and their experience with improv-
ers, landlords, and bosses no doubt colored their relationships within the
military.
German military migrants
The scale of conflict in the Seven Years War strained manpower resources to
such a point that Britain had to look beyond its dominions for war workers.
Across the English Channel it found what it needed in two forms: foreign
princes willing to hire out their military forces; and individuals who could
be recruited directed into the British Army. Although not part of the British
Empire, German peoples of Europe did play an important role during the
Seven Years War, both on the continent where Prussia proved an essential
ally and where mercenary units from other states fought in the British
interest, and as recruits to the regular British Army dispatched to the
American theatre. Ultimately, Britain decided to fight the war in North
America with its own army and to fight in Europe primarily by proxy. In
January of 1756 Britain signed the Convention of Westminster with Prussia
to prevent that state from siding with France. Frederick the Great waged
total war, exploiting resources and civilians to the full, and his policies had
a significant impact on western and northern Germany, which had been
largely conflict-free since 1714. Not only did Prussia forcibly harness people
to the war machine but also the ferocity of continental conflict uprooted
many, making them ripe pickings for recruiters from various armies. Fred-
erick's military support came at a price for Britain, which promised in 1758
to provide Prussia with £670,000 annually to subsidize its war effort. At the
66 13 July 1757, LO2533 no. 4/90; [July 1757], LO2529 no. 1/90; 13 July 1757, LO4012 no. 1/90; i4july
1757, LO1944 no. 5/90; 15 July 1757, LO6616/88.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
315
same time, Britain assumed the cost of the entire Hanoverian army, which
would amount to £1.2 million per year. 67
Britain also hired the services of mercenary soldiers. With the decline
of independent military enterprisers, mercenary captains who hired their
companies to fight for other, larger states found it difficult to raise armies
of a sufficient size from their own territories. They could recruit in foreign
domains, or could contract units from another army to support their own.
Increasingly, they hired a specific number of troops raised and maintained
by a foreign power, particularly smaller states in the Holy Roman Empire,
in return for the payment of a subsidy. Subsidizing forces from abroad
tended to be faster and simpler than raising new regiments at home. Subsidy
agreements also proved more flexible, as troops could be hired for short
periods and dispensed with when not needed. Political considerations also
played a part, as subsidy agreements served as a form of political alliance
with mutual responsibilities stipulated. 68 Since the Glorious Revolution, the
British had depended on a largely volunteer army, but could do this only
by extensively utilizing foreign soldiers. Peter Taylor argued that the fear
of a standing army led the English to "subcontracting the defense of their
liberties and privileges to Germans, Native Americans, and Africans." The
"tributary overlords of German territorial states" secured much English
business in supplying troops from within Europe, pushing most independ-
ent military contractors out of the market. They could meet this demand
for soldiers for hire as their subjects legally owed them military service,
but in doing so they had to alter the political economies of their states. 69
Many (including William Pitt) thought at the time the Hanoverian regime
of Britain in fact cared more about their status as Protectors of Hanover
than as defenders of the British realm, and the outbreak of hostilities with
France in the colonies in 1754 prompted Britain again to contract with
German territories - Hesse-Cassel, Ansbach, and Wiirzburg - to hold men in
reserve to help protect Hanover. Hanover itself received an annual subsidy
of £50,000 to expand its army by 8,000 men. During the invasion scare
of 1756, Britain paid for twelve Hanoverian battalions and eight Hessian
battalions to be stationed in the south of England. 70
67 Wilson, German Armies, pp. 263, 275, 277-278; Anderson, A People's Army, pp. 298-299.
68 Childs, Armies and Warfare in Europe, pp. 85-86.
69 Taylor, Indentured to Liberty, pp. 9, 11, 21.
70 Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 127; Wilson, German Armies, p. 263; Houlding, Fit for Service,
p. 323, n. 1.
316
PETER WAY
The "military-subsidy relationship" England had with Hesse-Cassel sheds
light on the phenomenon. Subsidy treaties usually took the form of mutual
defense pacts, with arrangements for payments made per man supplied,
a subsidy to the state for the duration of the war, and pay for the soldiers.
The soldier's food would be paid for out of his "subsistence" (or pay). The
British received soldiers who were trained and equipped in return. During
the Seven Years War, Britain contracted with Hesse-Cassel, a part of the
Holy Roman Empire, for 12,000 men in 1755, almost 19,000 in 1757, 12,000
two years later, and more than 15,000 in 1760. From 1751 to 1760, British
subsidies accounted for 40 per cent of all state revenue for Hesse-Cassel. The
monies allowed for the maintenance of a standing army of 14,000 within
the landgravial domain, equivalent to 1 soldier per 19 Hessian civilians, as
opposed to a ratio of 1 to 36 in both England and Prussia. 71
The Hessian state raised subsidy armies by developing a military tax,
the Kontribution, for the training, equipping, and payment of troops,
but the increased military expectations posed ideological problems for
the Landgraves. To circumvent the novelty and scale of demands, they
targeted "marginal" people - the masterless, indolent, those deemed the
most expendable. 72 The state in the 1740s became increasingly intrusive of
the household and defined marginality more loosely, taking servants, day
laborers, and apprentices when it could not be demonstrated that their labor
was essential to the local agricultural economy. Just before the Seven Years
War, the Landgrave promised not to force people into service if they could
not be spared without harming the household. But in 1762, the state removed
the distinction between the militia and subsidy army, and all suitable males
were expected to serve if called. This penetrated the peasant household
more deeply, taking away from the head of household decisions central to
its economy and familial relations. 73 The nature of the state, society, and
economy of Hesse-Cassel became attached to the dictates of the British
fiscal-military state, albeit more indirectly than within Great Britain and
its colonies. From London, Hessians were viewed as so much military labor;
from Hesse-Cassel, with the fortunes of the state resting on the sale of its
population as soldiers, the people could not but take on a military cast.
The British Army also attempted directly to exploit the continental
market in military labor. Warfare had wracked much of Europe through-
out the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth, causing social and
71 Taylor, Indentured to Liberty, pp. 1, 21-25, 36-37.
72 Ibid., pp. 49-51.
73 Ibid., pp. 68-70.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
317
economic dislocation. In some areas, as Aaron Fogelman's study of German
immigration in the period reveals, the devastation proved so severe that
traditional cultural practices had been subverted, opening the door for the
emergence of new forms of social relations and economic production, with
expansive states, profit-minded nobles, and commercially oriented peasants
looking toward the market. For many pushed to the margins, emigration
became an increasingly attractive option, particularly in southwestern
Germany and parts of Switzerland. War in the seventeenth century had
severely disturbed society in the region through depopulation, and sig-
nificant change followed in its wake during the decades of peace. States
grew in size and became more intrusive in village life. In agriculture, a shift
occurred from the three-field system of usage that included common land
to more commercial agriculture. The depopulation caused by warfare broke
down traditional social and economic practices but also eventually led to
marked demographic growth and socioeconomic change. As land proved
readily available, people began marrying earlier and setting up independ-
ent households, farmed the land more intensively, and practiced partible
inheritance. At the same time, both local nobles and the state sought to
assert their control over their domains and enhance revenues. Peasants
fought enclosure, attempts to alter inheritance patterns and restrain early
marriage, and initiatives to push them into manufacturing, at times taking
direct action. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, population growth
peaked and landholdings were becoming too small to support a family.
These processes led to a wave of emigration. 74
The labor demands for the all-out North American offensive were such
that the army turned to the continent to fill out the ranks. Britain's Hano-
verian dynasty and Protestant faith made Germans an obvious source to
tap. Thus, when in February 1756, the government decided to raise a new
regiment from among the Germans and Swiss resident in America to be
called the Royal Americans (the 62nd, later 60th, Regiment), seasoned non-
commissioned officers (NCOs) and soldiers were to be enlisted in Holland,
Germany, and Switzerland to complement these raw recruits. Recruiting
orders did stipulate "none but healthy Steady Men being protestants, and as
many as he can procure who have already been in the Service". The recruits
should be between eighteen and thirty-five years old, ^2" or taller, and no
Frenchmen were to be taken. To secure as many recruits as possible, the
army allowed the colonel some money "for the passage of a small number
of Women and Children, which he will be indispensably [sic] Obliged to
74 Fogelman, Hopeful Journeys, pp. 6, 16, 18-28, 48-65.
318
PETER WAY
take for the Success of the Affair and the acquisition of proper Men". 75 The
British in Frankfurt and Cologne found they were competing with recruit-
ers from the imperial Prussian and Danish armies and were having some
trouble meeting their requirements. The pickings proved so thin that one
officer suggested getting men as indentured servants for America and then
converting them to soldiers, presumably against their will. 76 But in April,
one recruiter reported that he expected to raise 100 good men in Germany.
Later in August, he noted that, while the recruits seemed fairly good, he had
hoped for more experienced soldiers, or tradesmen, but they were recruiting
late in the season. An officer in New York upon reviewing these German
recruits for the Royal Americans, complained that the majority were "Raw
men", while he also discovered "12 strange little Lads they Call Miners" and
ten boys for drummers. 77
A glimpse into the nature of the German influx into the army can be
found in one particular recruiting document of troops raised in Europe for
service in the Royal Americans by Herbert, Baron de Munster. 78 The data
reveals that 94 of the 152 men recruited as privates and noncommissioned
officers (61.8 per cent) reported having prior occupations, each with some
specific skill ranging from gardener to peruke-maker but with only brewers,
miners, and tailors reaching double figures. No one listed farmer or laborer,
although it is safe to assume that some of the fifty-eight individuals who
returned no occupation had performed manual labor or came from family
farms. Recruits averaged twenty-four years of age, typical for the army as a
whole, and it is likely that some had not yet set up independent households.
Most appear to have come from German principalities, with Switzerland
at twelve recruits the next most likely place of nativity, but others hailed
from as far afield as Scotland (two NCOs), Poland, and Bohemia. Clusters of
recruits came from individual places, as well: four from Basel, Switzerland;
ten from Darmstadt in Hesse; ten from Frankfurt in Hesse; five from Frein-
sheim in the Palatinate; and nine listing Saxony as their birthplace. These
recruits came from mixed occupational backgrounds, but one instance
75 Plan for recruiting in Germany [Feb. 1756], LO2576/19. The army also enlisted German
Protestants from the prisoners of war of the French army held at Portsmouth. See Earl Loud-
oun, Memorandum Books, HM 1717, vol. 10, 11 March 1756, Manuscript Department, Henry E.
Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
76 Joseph Yorke to Maj. Gen. Napier, 23 March 1756, LO959/21.
77 James Prevost to [Loudoun], 7 April 1756, LO1024/23; Prevost [to Loudoun], 14 Aug. 1756,
LOi4gi/34;John Young [to Loudoun], 2 Sept. 1756, LO1681/38.
78 List of Recruits under Command of Herbert, Baron de Munster . . . arrived the 27th of August
at New York, 1756, LO1607/37.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
319
occurs of people of a particular occupation from the same town enlisting.
Thirteen miners signed up from Clausdal (Clausthal) in Saxony in the Harz
Mountains, a town that since the sixteenth century had been associated
with the iron-mining industry promoted by the dukes of Brunswick. It is
not clear what prompted this exodus from mining in Clausdal, but these
individuals likely were the "12 strange little Lads they Call Miners" the Royal
American officer referred to upon their arrival in New York.
The regimental returns from 1757 showed 607 foreigners enlisted in
Europe with the army in America, or 4.3 per cent of the whole. The Royal
Americans had also been active in recruiting foreigners in America. The
returns show 803 such recruits in 1757, but it is not clear whether this figure
included Scots and Irish recruited in the colonies as well as Germans, al-
though the army sent German-speaking recruiting officers to Pennsylvania
and posted recruiting announcements in "Dutch". 79 A clearer example of the
German presence as a whole lies in the dispersion of foreigners throughout
the regiments. Seven of seventeen units returned no foreigners recruited in
America, and 507 of the 803 men (63.1 per cent) had found homes in the four
battalions of the Royal American Regiment, the one specifically raised from
Germans in the colonies. 80 This regiment also had commissioned officers
from Europe who spoke German.
Wars past and rapid socioeconomic change yielded a harvest of men from
German Europe to fight in the red coat of Britain in the Seven Years War.
At the same time, the desire of some heads of small states to profit from
bartering their military labor power to Britain condemned their people to
wage war not of their own making. Britain's war industry proved blind to
national or ethnic boundaries when it came to filling the ranks.
America, reluctant recruiting ground
Lord Loudoun, commander-in-chief of the American army, arrived in New
York on 23 July 1756, and shortly thereafter began expressing his opinions of
colonials. The general wrote in late August that colonials "have assumed to
themselves what they Call Rights and Priviledges, Tottaly unknown in the
Mother Country and are made use of, for no purpose, but to screen them,
from giveing any aid, of any sort, for carrying on the Service". 81 Relations
79 Samuel Kemble to Capt. William Skinner, 22 July 1756, LO1324/30.
80 From an analysis of the returns utilized in Table 10.1.
81 [Loudoun] to Cumberland, 29 Aug. 1756, LO1626/52.
320
PETER WAY
between the army and colonists soon had congealed into bad blood and they
grew only more heated under Loudoun's vice-regal rule. Conflict erupted
between the army and the colonies over issues of provisioning, quartering,
and trade, but the mobilization of military manpower constituted a root
source of disagreement. Raising an army in America brought the fiscal-
military state across the Atlantic and to colonies that had little experience
of the military revolution. Attempting to extract even a small proportion of
the British Army from the colonies cut into the heart of local economies and
made the British-American relationship all too frequently an adversarial
one, as a Chester County, Pennsylvania, tavern-keeper made all too clear.
On 12 December 1757, John Baldwin discovered Sergeant James Jobb of the
New York Independent Companies attempting to enlist two young men
and "Swore by God that he would beat the brains of any Scoundrell Soldier"
recruiting in his inn. The sergeant "answer'd that he had Lord Loudoun's
Orders for what he was about", to which Baldwin replied, "God Dam Lord
Loudoun and his Army too, they are all Scoundrells and a burden upon the
Country [.] What had he or his Army done Since their comeing but deprived
the people of their hands [indentured servants and hired laborers], and if
the Country Served them right they would kick them all out, like a parcel
of Scoundrells, as they are, for they would never do the Country any good."
Baldwin then attacked Jobb, wounding him, while his friends attacked
the recruiting party, causing them to flee. Two days later, Baldwin and
his companions disrupted Jobb and his party when recruiting in another
tavern in Wilmington, Delaware, leading to a "Ryot" and the wounding of
several soldiers. 8z Baldwin had laid his hands not only on one poor recruiting
sergeant, but also on the pulse of the conflict over recruiting: who would
control America's labor, army officers or colonial masters, and to what
ends, state or private?
The supply of military labor, both the provincial troops raised by the colo-
nies and the regular troops recruited by the army in the colonies, provided
a flashpoint for internecine conflict. Every year the commander-in-chief
informed the colonial governors of the number of provincial troops he
expected the colonies to raise for the campaign. The scale of mobiliza-
tion demanded by the British eclipsed past war efforts and the economic
wherewithal of the colonies, so foot-dragging naturally occurred. The often-
strained relations between the executive and legislative branches of colonial
governments, the assemblies' control of the purse strings, and in certain
instances the prevalence of internal sectarian politics meant the number of
82 Information of James Jobb, 14 Dec. 1757, LO5011/111.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
321
provincial troops actually fielded often fell well short of those requested. For
example, the army requested 9,000 provincial troops for the 1756 campaign
against Fort Crown Point and the provinces fielded 6,434 privates and NCOs.
And General James Abercromby called for 20,000 provincial troops in total
for the 1758 campaign and, although this was supported by Pitt's promise to
reimburse the colonial governments, in April he reported that fewer than
18,000 had mobilized. 83
Constitutional concerns regarding the exercise of imperial powers only
partly explain the colonies' reluctance to mobilize on the scale expected
of them. The negative impact of extracting so many men from the civil
economy worried officials, but so did the fact that broad mobilization caught
up those of a status not normally expected to serve in the ranks. Governor
Thomas Pownall explained Massachusetts's failure to meet Abercromby's
request for provincial troops in 1758 in terms that revealed the same class
politics operated in the colonies as did in Britain.
I believe the real Truth is in attempting to raise 7,000 Men, we have
overeached our Strength, the last thousand edges too near upon those
who from their Situation & Circumstances thought it would not come
to their Share [...] Laws will execute themselves while they extend
only to a given rank of Men, but when they begin to entrench upon
a Rank above that, you are sensible how much they labour and are
obstructed. 84
Class status played a key role in provincial mobilization throughout the war.
The colonial assemblies forced men into service in their regiments, while
the usual allowance of the provision of a substitute worked to ensure most
draftees came from the laboring classes. 85 Colonial leaders thus did not
scruple at forcing many of their own citizens into the provincial regiments,
83 James Abercromby, Return of Provincial Forces of the Several Colonies raised for the reduc-
tion of Crown Point, 26 June, 1756, LO1254/28; W[illiam] Shirley to Sir Thomas Robinson, 11
Aug. 1755, LO622/13; Massachusetts General Court, Resolutions regarding Crown Point, 14 Jan.
1756, LO759/17; Connecticut General Assembly, Resolution on the raising of men and money
for operations in 1756, 21 Jan. 1756, LO763/17; [Abercromby] Circular Letter to the Governors
of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, 15 March 1758, no. 45, box 1, Abercromby Papers,
Huntington Library [henceforth in form AB45/1]; [Abercromby] to Wm. Pitt, 28 April 1758,
AB215/5.
84 Pownall to Abercromby, 19 June 1758, AB366/8.
85 Anderson, A People's Army, pp. 41-42; Cress, Citizens in Arms, pp. 5-7; Selesky, War and Society
in Colonial Connecticut, pp. 155-162; Titus, The Old Dominion at War, pp. 59, 63-65, 79-80, 98-100,
145-148; Ferling, "Soldiers for Virginia", p. 316.
322
PETER WAY
but balked when their own class confronted the possibility of having to
serve in the front ranks.
The colonies took advantage of their control over the raising and provi-
sioning of provincial troops to limit the impact of mobilization; however,
the army exercised direct authority in the recruiting of colonials to the
regular forces, and this subject proved more contentious in the British-
American relationship. Colonial resistance to British recruitment to the
armed services, in particular impressment to the Royal Navy, had a long
tradition. 86 In the Seven Years War, however, the enlistment of volunteers
to the army provoked much controversy, superficially because of the tactics
used in recruitment, but at root due to the impact mass mobilization had
on the labor requirements of the colonial economies.
Enlisting in America ran essentially the same as in Britain, even though
the part of the Mutiny Act dealing with recruitment did not apply until
1756. Recruiters were allowed levy money for each man, from which they
had to provide necessaries, provisions, and transportation, as well as offer
a bounty to lure men into the service. But commanding officers pressured
them "to get the Recruits as cheap as you can". 87 Recruiting officers, in their
rush to man the army, at times stooped to trickery, and this inflamed public
opinion. James McDonell claimed that, while drinking with a friend, he
fell in with a recruiting party from the New York Independent Companies,
"as he was told next Morning, being that Night so Drunk that he doth not
remember seeing a Red Coat in the house, and was greatly surprised in the
Morning when the said Corporal told him he was enlisted". He deserted and
received 200 lashes in punishment. 88 Other prospects could require greater
subtlety. A Royal Americans recruiting party owed Joshua Boud money for
food and lodging in his public house. He took a dollar, he thought in pay-
ment, but the soldiers said he had enlisted and took him before a magistrate,
who, despite his refusal to enlist, confined him without subsistence until
he yielded. 89
Sharp recruiting practices, acknowledged and tolerated to a degree in
Britain, prompted more controversy in the colonies, and to an extent tainted
all recruiting for the regular army. Horatio Sharpe, Maryland's governor,
86 Most notably, a November 1747 impressment riot in Boston. See Rogers, Empire and Liberty,
pp. 38-40; Brunsman, "The Knowles Atlantic Impressment Riots of the 1740s".
87 Lt Col Gage's Recruiting Instructions, [3 Jan. 1758], LO5328/115. Levying recruits to the
Royal American regiment required an estimated £5 per man in 1756. See Estimate of the several
Articles of Expense on the American Service, [March 1756], LO6738/22.
88 WO/71/65/361-366, 14 July 1757-
89 Joshua Boude, Petition to Loudoun [1756], LO2456/57.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
323
informed Loudoun that recruiting parties for the 44th and 48th Regiments
had attacked a vessel in a river and assaulted several persons, including a
County High Sheriff in his own house. 90 Some citizens brought "Vexatious
Suits" in the courts of law against recruiting officers for performing their
duties. 91 Debts owed by putative recruits were invented or inflated and the
men got themselves incarcerated to prevent their having to join the army. 92
Colonists could turn to violence if obstruction did not work. A Philadelphia
mob attacked recruiters in 1756, beating a sergeant to death, jailing the rest,
and liberating the enlisted men. 93 Three riots took place in Wilmington, Dela-
ware, in the fall of 1757, in which recruiters suffered beatings. Although the
recruiting officer knew the identity of the mob leaders, he did not trust local
authorities to prosecute. 94 "I have had my party out in the Country but they
generally get Mob'd", Captain Mackay reported from Portsmouth, Maine,
in December 1757; "one of them was beat in the Streets the other Evening
by five Sailors, as yet I can make no discovery of the Authors, but I have a
warrant out against one who has taken the liberty to threaten". 95 In Boston
on February 3, 1758 a "Broil [...] between a Mob, & some of the Recruiting
Parties" took place over NCOs allegedly committing "some imprudences that
hurt ye Service. To see a Drunken Man lugg'd thro' ye Streets on a Souldiers
back guarded by others wither it was or was not to carry him before a Justice
to swear must certainly give a Strong impression of ye method of enlist-
ing & certainly have an ill effect on an inflam'd Mobb", warned Governor
Pownall of Massachusetts. However, Boston justices investigated the "Noise
6 Tumult" and attributed it to "some mistaken apprehensions among some
Young and undesigning Persons". 96 Questionable recruiting practices help
explain some of the colonial opposition to the mobilization of manpower,
but deeper social and economic factors also played a role.
The struggle over labor most clearly evinced itself in the army's recruit-
ment of indentured servants. From the military's perspective, the need
for fighting men trumped all other concerns during wartime; to masters
90 Horatio Sharpe to Loudoun, 18 May 1757, LO6353/80.
91 In one instance, the 44th Regiment had to pay the attorney general of the Jersies £12. 16s. for
defending recruiting officers from such suits: John Duncan, 44th Regiment of Foot on Account
of Recruiting &c for the Year 1757, 24 June 1757, LO6600/86.
92 Weekly Returns of the Recruiting Parties of Capt. Mackay, Lt Cottnam and Ens. Archbold for
the 40th Regiment, Jan. 1758, LO6919/118; Samuel Mackay to Col Forbes, 6 Feb. 1758, LO5549/119.
93 Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America, p. 107; Rogers, Empire and Liberty, p. 42.
94 Capt. Charles Cruickshank to Loudoun, 14 Dec. 1757, LO5012/111.
95 Samuel Mackay to Col Forbes, 16 Dec. 1757, LO5023/111.
96 T. Pownall to Loudoun, 6, 13 Feb. 1758, LO5547/119, LO5569/120; Boston justices to Pownall,
7 Feb. 1758, LO5550/119.
324
PETER WAY
who viewed their servants as commodities, enlistment constituted theft.
Instructions for raising the regiments for the 1755 campaign indicated
that indentured servants should not enlist without the consent of their
masters, 97 but in the wake of Braddock's defeat the need to bring the regi-
ments up to strength led Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, acting
commander-in-chief, to remove this exception. By February 1756, a crisis
brewed. Horatio Sharpe warned that masters, "having a great part of their
Property vested in Servants", were outraged by the practice, and expressed
fears that "an Insurrection of the People is likely to ensue". 98 Corbin Lee,
who managed an iron forge in Maryland worked by indentured servants,
complained not only of the loss of the labor but also of the tactics practiced
by recruiters. "It is not unusual with many of these recruiting Gentlemen
when they meet with a person that will not be bullied out of his Property
and tamely give up his Servant without any sort of Recompense immediately
to deem him an Enemy to his Majesty's Service." He believed the actions
of the recruiting officer to be "Illegal nay felonious; for they stole into our
Plantations disguis'd like thieves in the dead of night made our Servants
Drunk forced them to inlist and curried them off". 99 The Pennsylvania
General Assembly advised the lieutenant governor that many masters had
complained "a great Number of Bought Servants are lately inlisted by the
Recruiting Officers now in this Province, and clandestinely or by open
Force conveyed away", yet according to the law masters possessed "as true
& as just a Property in the Servant bought as they had before in the Money
with which he was purchas'd". 100
Complaints soon turned to legal action. "The officers have been arrested
for entertaining these Servants, Violences used by the Populace" in Penn-
sylvania and Maryland "for recovering them from the Officers, and the
Servants imprison'd for inlisting", lamented William Shirley. He looked to
the king to establish a policy in an attempt to allay "the present disputes
& Heart-burnings". Masters of two servants enlisted in New York sued the
recruiting lieutenant of the 48th Regiment in 1756, and he had to post bail
or be jailed. That same year several Pennsylvania masters initiated legal
proceedings against recruiters. Colonial lawyers, revealingly, argued that
servants, as property, had no free will, and thus could not be taken against
97 Recruiting Instructions [1755], LO727/15.
98 Horatio Sharpe to William Shirley, 2 Feb. 1756, LO793/186.
99 Corbin Lee to Gov. Horatio Sharp, 30 April 1757, LO3506/76.
100 Pennsylvania, General Assembly, House of Representatives, Address to Robert Hunter
Morris, 11 Feb. 1756, LO819/18.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
325
their masters' wishes. 101 Direct action against recruiters also occurred. Pieter
Van Ingen of the Royal Americans enlisted a servant of Samuel Henry at
Trenton, Newjersey, in August 1756. Henry later confronted him in a tavern
demanding his servant or money in recompense, striking him on the head
with an iron-tipped cane when he refused. Van Ingen chased him off with
his sword, but Henry returned with friends in an attempt to capture the
servant. Again the recruiting party drove them off. When they tried to
leave, though, Henry attacked Van Ingen with a pitchfork, which he parried
with his sword. He retreated inside and had his men fasten knives to poles.
They sallied forth and routed Henry's party, which surrendered the field
and the servant. But when mob rule failed, Henry turned to the law, and
had a justice send a constable to Van Ingen demanding he give up the man
or the money, or go to jail. Van Ingen refused and a writ was served upon
him, and he was jailed in a "Stinking" cell despite the protest of his colonel
as to the illegality of his imprisonment. 102
The ongoing furore over recruitment necessitated state intervention.
Parliament extended the Mutiny Act to the colonies and adopted legislation
on the recruitment of both free individuals and indentured servants in March
1756. 103 To quell any complaints that free men had been duped into enlisting,
the law required a recruit to be taken to a justice of the peace after twenty-four
hours and within four days of his listing to swear to his willingness to enlist. If
he balked, he had to return the levy money and pay 20s sterling for expenses;
otherwise he was considered enlisted. The act also addressed the thorny issue
of recruiting indentured servants, making it lawful to recruit indentured
servants who volunteered, but stipulated that, if the owner protested within
six months, the recruiting officer must either give up the servant upon being
repaid the enlisting money, or pay the master a sum to be determined by two
justices of the peace based on the original purchase price and the amount of
time left to be served. 104 Parliament with this act codified the fiscal-military
state's premise that the army's need for manpower prevailed over private
101 William Shirley [to Henry Fox], 8 March 1756, LO890/20; Shirley to Robert Hunter Morris,
20 Feb. 1756, in Lincoln, Correspondence of William Shirley, II, pp. 391-392, n. 1; Robert Sterling
to Loudoun, 23 Aug. 1756, LO1548/35; Major Rutherford [to Loudoun], 23 Aug. 1756, LO1549/35;
Charles Hardy to Lord Halifax, 7 May 1756, inPargellis, Military Affairs in North America, 7748-
1765, pp. 174-175-
102 Pieter Van Ingen, Affidavit, 18 April 1757, LO3376/74; James Prevost [to Loudoun], 5 April
1757, LO3294/72; John Smyth, certificate, 6 April 1757, LO3300/73.
103 Great Britain, Parliament [An act for the better recruiting of His Majesty's Forces on the
Continent of America; and for the Regulation of the Army . . .]. 25 March 1756, LO2583/21.
104 In response, Benjamin Franklin filed a petition on behalf of fellow Pennsylvania masters
claiming £3,652 and a half pence Pennsylvania currency for 612 servants listed: List of Servants
326
PETER WAY
interest, whether communal or familial concern for the liberty of individu-
als who enlisted, or masters' property in human labor for the purpose of
individual economic gain. In taking this position the act effectively made the
army the preeminent employer of labor in the colonies, at once master to free
laborers and bonded servants purchased from reluctant owners.
The recruiting legislation did not prevent conflict from occurring over
mobilization in the colonies, however, as it did not remove the root issue of
control of labor power. "We shall have a great deal of difficulty to recruit of
our Regiment", confessed an officer, "the People of this Country having no
great affection for a red Coat, nor do they stay long with us after they list
when they find an opportunity to take their leave." Another complained
"there is a general backwardness in the people of this province to the Kings
service, which is but too much encouraged by all sorts of people, as they
seem to consider every man, we enlist, as a real loss to the Province". 105 Thus
regiments in Halifax found it necessary to recruit as far south as Maryland
in 1756, having more luck the further south they went, whereas those in
South Carolina two years later had to strike 300 miles northward. 106 The
physical requirements were also lowered with any man "free from Ruptures,
Convulsions, and Infirmities, and fit for service", being acceptable. In 1758,
Loudoun remarked that if the army wanted to get "fighting men, We must
not at present Insist either on Size or Beauty". Perhaps this explains how
John Rainsdown, described as "hump back'd, crook'd Legs, and 4 feet 6
inches high", got into the Royal Americans. 107 Still, the army operated well
below its strength on paper. Such reluctance to serve in the regulars played
a role in Pitt's decision to send ever more regular regiments to America.
The army competed directly with other employers for labor but govern-
ment policy limited what they could offer recruits. The colonial provincial
regiments in particular monopolized men of recruiting age because they
offered better terms of employment. The provinces paid higher bounties
Belonging to the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and taken into His Majesty's Service, 21 April 1757,
L0341/74-
105 William Eyre to Col Napier, 23 Jan. 1756, LO766/17; John Cosnan to Col Forbes, 9 Jan. 1758,
LO5377/116.
106 Charles Lawrence to Loudoun, 19 Oct. 1756, LO2042/46; Officers belonging to the Regiments
in Nova Scotia upon Recruiting Duty, [9 Nov. 1756], LO2186/50; John Tulleken [to Loudoun], 29
Jan. 1758, LO5486/118.
107 Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in North America, pp. 110-111; [Loudoun] to Maj. Gen. Hopson, 23
Jan. 1758, LO5451/117; Arthur Nicholson, Return of Men found unfit for Service, 23 April 1757,
LO3433, box 74.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
327
than the typical £3 inducement for regular recruits. 108 The regular army's
term of service also played a role as well. As a rule, men enlisted for life
during peacetime. The need for ever more bodies during wartime, however,
forced the army at times to offer short-term service, usually three to five
years, but sometimes fewer. Nonetheless, life enlistment remained the
basic experience of regular troops in the Seven Years War. 109 By comparison,
provincial soldiers typically signed on for the campaign, usually spring
through fall. Provincial service paid better wages as well. Regular soldiers
received a daily wage of eight pence, two of which were deducted as "off-
reckonings" for payments to various offices (the Exchequer, Paymaster
General, Chelsea Hospital, the regimental agent), and to provide the troops'
annual regimental clothing, necessaries, and accoutrements (a further
seven pence per week went to the regimental surgeon and paymaster, and
to cover company expenses for a man's "necessaries" like shoes, gaiters, arms
repair, and barbering). 110 Fred Anderson, for example, calculated the net
income (wage, food, and lodging) of a Massachusetts soldier at 2s provincial
currency per day, or roughly twice that of a regular. 111 Virginia provincials,
by comparison, received only 8d a day local currency (worth 40-70 per
cent of sterling), which compared unfavorably to the 2-3S a day wages for
unskilled labor or to the earnings of provincials in neighboring colonies, no
doubt contributing to the need for the colony to conscript troops in the war's
early years and to offer higher bounties later on. 112 The average wage for the
provincials from the more northerly colonies who did most of the fighting,
however, was significantly more than their redcoated comrades in arms.
Many colonists did join the regulars despite all the conflict surrounding
recruitment, especially in the first two years of the war. For the regiments
that returned the nativity of troops in 1757, those born in the American
colonies accounted for 755 of 14,166 men (5.3 per cent) and natives of Europe
enlisted in the colonies for 803 (5.7 per cent), making more than one in
108 For example, Massachusetts bounties inflated from £3-£4 in 1755 to a peak of more than
£26 in 1760. See Anderson, A People's Army, p. 225.
109 For example, the 45th Regiment, which had been stationed in Halifax since the previous
war and had recruited extensively in North America, reported in 1757 that of its 955 soldiers: 819
(85.8 per cent) had enlisted for life, 1 for twenty years (0.1 per cent), 1 for seven (0.1 per cent), 5
for six (0.5 per cent), 2 for four (0.2 per cent), and 127 men (13.3 per cent) had signed on for three
years. See Muster Rolls of the 45th Regiment, April 1757, LO6987/76.
110 Steppler, "The Common Soldier in the Reign of George III", pp. 95-105.
111 Anderson, A People's Army, pp. 38-39.
112 Titus, Old Dominion at War, pp. 4-45, 163 n. 87; Robert Dinwiddie to Loudoun, 24 May 1756,
LO1175/26.
328
PETER WAY
every ten soldiers an "American" recruit (Table 10.1). 113 In recruiting such
numbers, the British Army did not merely target the marginal but reached
into the heart of colonial production. In a sample of sixty-six regular recruits
mostly from the Boston area, forty-one (62.1 per cent) came from artisanal
backgrounds (with shoemakers and tailors being most represented), eleven
(16.7 per cent) came from agriculture, eleven (16.7 per cent) had performed
manual labor, and three (4.5 per cent) clerical or professional work. 114
An account of recruiting in America clearly reveals the army's impact on
colonial economies. Great differences existed between regions, most strik-
ingly between north and south because of the latter's growing dependence on
slavery. But in the mid-Atlantic region and New England, the two main areas
of recruitment for the army, petty production based upon the household in
the agricultural and the craft sectors, proved the norm, with familial labor
playing an important role and, particularly in the mid-Atlantic, bonded
labor making significant contributions. 115 At the same time, labor scarcity
prevailed throughout the colonies. Military recruitment exacerbated this
situation and this clash between household production and state-sponsored
enterprise on an Atlantic scale partly explains the fractious experience
of mobilization. Its effect on indentured servitude figured centrally. First
without any explicit policy, then with the backing of a British parliamentary
act, the army "freed" many servants from bondage and introduced them
to paid military labor. Although it promised reimbursement for the loss of
contract time, cash could not immediately replace scarce labor. Likewise,
the recruiting of free men hit farm and craft households, where the young
men targeted by the army performed important labor as family members,
apprentices or journeymen, and servants. Their call to arms produced cries
of concern as it meant a loss of labor, one reason why colonials looked more
favorably upon enlistment to the provincial regiments, given the annual
term of service and the fact that money earned tended to be expended
locally. To the extent that the regular army (with the government's backing)
facilitated the recruitment of such men and their abstraction from family
and village for longer periods, it had a direct impact on domestic economies.
113 Stanley Pargellis estimated that 7,500 colonials enlisted in the British army in 1755-1757; Dan
Higgonbotham, 11,000 during the war as a whole. See Pargellis, Lord Loudoun in NorthAmerica,
pp. 108-109; Higgonbotham, "The Early American Way of War", p. 235.
114 For a full presentation of this data, see Way, "Rebellion of the Regulars", pp. 768-769.
115 A voluminous literature exists on the colonial economy. See, for example, Henretta,
"Families and Farms"; Salinger, "To Serve Well and Faithfully"; Kulikoff The Agrarian Origins
of American Capitalism; Schultz, Republic of Labor; Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen; Kulikoff,
From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers.
"THE SCUM OF EVERY COUNTY, THE REFUSE OF MANKIND"
329
British demands for support thus met with American recalcitrance and
outright resistance to the effort to mobilize manpower in the Seven Years
War. In the process of a massive mutual enterprise, feelings of difference
sharpened, acquiring an edge that the infusion of funds from the British
fiscal-military state and the shared military success of the later war years
blunted, but the blade had been tempered and needed only another imperial
crisis to whet the distinction between Briton and American.
Conclusion
Warfare in the eighteenth century operated according to the principles of the
military revolution, the basic premise of which hinged on bringing as many
men as possible onto the battlefield. For every nation-state, mobilization
occurred within a particular political economy at a particular moment in
history. In the era of the Seven Years War, a rapidly commercializing economy
spread across British dominions and created a surplus of labor that facilitated
raising the army. England's control of other political states, achieved through
successive colonization of Ireland and union with Scotland, cemented by the
repression of the Jacobite threat, enabled the expropriation of their wealth to
fund military endeavors and the exploitation of their populations as sources
of military labor, while commercialization of their economies along English
lines freed individuals from ties to the soil and trades. The attempt to exer-
cise similar force in the American colonies, where labor scarcity prevailed,
encountered more resistance from people less used to the yoke of British
rule, whose economic activities relied upon the control of labor that could be
sorely spared for soldiering. However, the financial might of Britain bought
American compliance, particularly in the funding of the provincial regi-
ments, and colonists in the tens of thousands joined the fight against France
either as regulars or colonial troops. Warfare for Britain thus required not a
simple conjoining of state interest and military acumen, but rested upon the
historical development of capital and ongoing class formation, enabling the
fiscal-military state to colonize the resources and labor power of dependent
polities. As a result, the nation could rely on volunteers to practice the art of
war in its interests.
Mobilization of warrior populations in
the Ottoman context, 1750-1850
Virginia H. Aksan
Mustafa Vasfi Efendi of Kabud, a native of a village near Tokat, in Anatolia,
Turkey, spent the years from 1801 to 1833 in Ottoman military service,
first in Erzurum, as part of the troops under Dramali Mahmud Pasha,
then in Agriboz (Euboia, Greece), where he signed on with Carhaci (Chief
Skirmisher) Ali Pasha, and then Omer Vyroni Pasha, during the Greek
Revolution. His simplistic, semi-literate description of battles, sieges,
looting, and pillaging is one of the few pre-World War I Ottoman military
memoirs we possess. The following passage is typical of the work, and is
evocative of the life of one Ottoman irregular. Vasfi Efendi's escapade here
appears to have been a private enterprise, and evoked no discipline other
than a scolding from his commander.
"The Janissaries, because they were on foot, soon fell behind", he begins.
"We, who had good horses, went on ahead. We were altogether eighteen
horsemen. Anyway, we went off and arrived in an infidel village." They
sat down under two mulberry trees, whereupon some local inhabitants
approached them, and said: "We are afraid of you. We have wives and
daughters on that mountain over there. If you give us protection, we will
come down. We said: 'the pasha has sent us and we have orders to protect
you.' The infidels were extremely glad, went away and brought lamb and
bread to us. About twenty to thirty women and girls came with them."
The cavalrymen grew afraid of being outnumbered, and isolated for the
night, when they assumed the infidels would slay them, so "[we] took the
infidels, cut off their heads, captured these thirty women and girls, and took
off." They came upon a church, captured the infidels who were inside the
church, cut off their heads and hid in the church for the night. They found
5,000 sheep beside the church the next day, and with sheep and captives,
returned towards their camp. On the way back, an encounter with a troop
of janissaries resulted in their losing captives and booty at gunpoint. "I had
a girl and woman with me, and two mules. They [the janissaries] arrived,
plundered all my possessions. I remained behind as a simple foot soldier."
Then, running into other janissaries, Vasfi pretended to be of their number
and complained of his treatment by his comrades. A Kurdish servant of
the janissaries addressed those who had abused him: "you have taken this
332
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
man's possessions, slave girls, and severed infidels' heads. Things like this
do not befit our corps. Now give this man his belongings." Vasfi Efendi thus
retrieved his booty, and returned to camp. His commander rewarded him
with two coins for the heads, but chastised him that the deli horsemen
(his regiment presumably) had no business advancing ahead of the main
army corps. 1
What was it to be employed as a hired gun, either enlisted irregular
or mercenary, in the Ottoman military system? Embedded in Mustafa's
description is the problem that confronts us when we try to examine
military labor in the Ottoman context. Inter-service rivalries, motivation,
loyalty, and discipline - common problems for historians of all armies - are
all evident in his account, which is predominantly a tale about military
entrepreneurship. Over the long history of the empire, words such as
deli, ba§ibozuk, sekban, sarica, and levend, terms for bands of warriors, or
semi-autonomous regiments, unpredictable and often lethal, have come
to exemplify the breakdown of the Ottoman "classical" military after 1650.
In the nineteenth century, the notorious ba§ibozuks (literally "broken-
headed" or "masterless" ones), Ottoman irregulars, were blamed for almost
all disturbances, but especially the so-called Bulgarian atrocities which led
to the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-1878. The extent to which the images of
such irregulars are embedded in the public imagination of post-Ottoman
national histories is one of the chief differences between the Ottomans and
the other regions of our collaborative project.
This chapter will explore the ways in which the Ottomans conceptualized
and utilized volunteer and contractual soldiers over time, especially for the
period 1750-1850; I argue that, during one of the most difficult periods for the
survival of the empire, the Ottomans evolved from a largely commissioned
state army (the janissaries and the timariots) into a federative military
system that came to be dominated by semi-autonomous fighters, first as
auxiliaries to the traditional janissary/sipahi organization and then as
entrepreneurial ethnic bands. This is John Lynn's "aggregate contract army",
consisting of small numbers of state troops, mercenary bands, and private
armies raised by provincial elites. Local officials, in effect, had become
military contractors, a system which empowered provincial households
and sanctioned the perpetuation of a style and ethos of military life that
1 Schmidt, "The Adventure of an Ottoman Horseman: the Autobiography of Kabudli Vasfi
Efendi, 1800-1825", in Jan Schmidt, The Joys of Philology: Studies in Ottoman Literature, History
and Orientalism (1500-1923) (Istanbul, 2002), I, pp. 284-285, quoted in Aksan, Ottoman Wars
7700-1870, p. 298.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 333
persisted into the twentieth century. In what follows, I will schematize the
kind of forces available to the sultans before 1700 and how they financed
the system before turning to the changes evident after 1750 when the need
for manpower became particularly acute in the northern frontier wars with
the Russians. As the classical Ottoman military formations broke down, a
large proportion of the Ottoman population became complicit in and tied
to the Ottoman center through tax privileges and contractual obligations
to supply the battlefields of the empire.
Aspects of the pre-1700 Ottoman system
Prior to 1700, the Ottoman military system was based on three components:
the janissary standing infantry, created in the fourteenth century and
numbering some 20,000 in Siileyman the Magnificent's time (1520-1566);
the fief-based timariots, the sipahis, a cavalry class which could muster
some 80,000 for imperial campaigns; and auxiliary troops raised locally,
with well-defined roles in skirmishing, guarding mountain passes, and
garrison support for the Ottoman expansion, especially on the European
frontier. 2 The Ottoman strategy with newly conquered populations was
to negotiate tax benefits based on the potential of local martial expertise
and intelligence. 3
The Ottoman Empire maintained such center/periphery relationships
as a contractual, negotiated enterprise until the 1830s, a system which
proved flexible as it accumulated new territories. While coercive in initial
conquest, the extension of Ottoman power proved highly adaptive to widely
diverse local situations, and attempted no real integration except as related
to shari'a law and taxes. Using local systems of defense and awarding tax
breaks were attractive instruments to frontier populations initially and, in
the early days of empire, Christian as well as Muslim auxiliaries acquired
2 The most recent assessments of the pre-1700 Ottoman military are by Agoston, "Empires
and Warfare in East-Central Europe", and Murphey, "Ottoman Military Organisation in South-
Eastern Europe".
3 Palmira Brummett, Nicholas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein, Hasan Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski
have expanded our knowledge of Ottoman dynastic self-conception and projection as well, but
there is much to do to put the Ottoman house in a comparative context as regards sovereignty,
imperial designs, and military manpower. A recent work goes a long way to bridging the gap:
Burbank and Cooper, Empires in World History. Birdal, The Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans,
is an example of new work on the eastern land empires. Also important are Brummett, "Imagin-
ing the Early Modern Ottoman Space"; Vatin and Veinstein, Le serail ebranle; and Karateke and
Reinkowski, Legitimizing the Order.
334
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
privileges based on their service in the military system. As time went by,
"turning Turk" (becoming Muslim by conversion) was the route to power,
whether you were Albanian, Bulgarian, or Serbian. Even then, apart from
the dev§irme, the slave tributary children destined for the janissaries, such
conversions were largely voluntary. 4
What motivated such populations? For the earlier centuries, the ghazi
warrior, that is, the Muslim warrior whose motivation was solely ideological,
was long argued as instrumental to the success of the Ottoman imperial
drive for expansion of the Dar-al-Islam. Though challenged by new com-
prehensive views on the diversity of the ethnic and religious populations
who collaborated with the house of Osman in the early years, the idea of
the fanatical Muslim warrior remains prevalent in much of the literature. 5
The argument is made that the primary Ottoman social hierarchies and tax
categories before 1750 were delineated around religion: Muslims and non-
Muslims. Non-Muslims were tolerated as second-class citizens who paid
a poll tax {cizye) and were not allowed to serve in the military. The askeri
(military) class, those who did fight and achieved tax-exempt status, were
nominally Muslim warrior populations. But it would be naive to insist on
the Muslimness of men who surely were motivated by the same self-interest
and social networks characteristic of all military environments. Self-interest
is especially evident in the eighteenth century when the state came to rely
more and more on irregular troops under the command of local provincial
elites. Campaign headquarters on the European and Persian frontiers cer-
tainly operated as the Ottoman government-on-parade, and employment
in the military was naturally a ritual of submission, an essential part of
the Ottoman performance of sovereignty, but cash rewards, as indicated
in Mustafa's story, remained a constant incentive for participation in the
Ottoman system until at least the 1820s.
In short, auxiliary or mobile warriors, Muslim and Christian, did have
a fair amount of autonomy over their participation in imperial campaigns
or postings at strategic fortress garrisons. Until the end of the eighteenth
century, purging of the Ottoman forces of "infidels" was not part of Ottoman
policy. That is to say, little systematic inspection about the "Muslimness" of
4 This remains a much contested subject in the field. On conversion in the seventeenth
century, see Krstic, Contested Conversions to Islam; David and Fodor, Ransom Slavery along the
Ottoman Borders; Anscombe, "Albanians and Mountain Bandits"; Baer, Honored by the Glory of
Islam; and Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans.
5 Finkel, Osman's Dream; Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650, 2nd edn; Barkey, Empire of
Difference. See also Aksan, "Locating the Ottomans among Early Modern Empires". For an as-
sessment of Barkey's book and two others, see Aksan, "Turks and Ottomans among the Empires".
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 335
the Ottoman rank-and-file troops, whether in the janissaries, sipahi cavalry
troops or the myriad auxiliaries, seems to have occurred. Declaring oneself
Muslim often sufficed for certification and a piece of paper, such as the
janissary esame (pay chit), or the six-month contract as part of a mercenary
unit, guaranteed an attachment to the dynasty. This was particularly
true of the provincial garrisons, where a web of military entrepreneurial
networks coalesced around tax revenues and agriculture beginning in the
mid-seventeenth century, which would have attracted local inhabitants in
considerable numbers.
Call it Ottoman pragmatism or Ottoman secularism, there seems to have
been a tolerance for notional Muslimness in these military milieus. Con-
versely, one of the great ironies of the Ottoman dynasty is that it expressed
itself as most "Muslim" after the 1820s, precisely when shrinking territories
made manpower shortages a potential problem, and put pressure on central
Anatolia Muslim male populations. For the Ottomans, the need to mobilize
volunteer warriors became paramount when empire-wide conscription
or general mobilization was attempted in the nineteenth century, but the
resistance to including Christians restricted the available population to
Muslims, and the call to holy war (Jihad) seldom produced substantial
numbers. 6
The post-1700 environment
After 1700, the main obsession of the dynasty was the preservation of the
Danubian, Black Sea, and Caucasus borders against the predations of the
Russians, their chief and relentlessly successful foe. The need to defend the
borders, which became a matter of survival, engendered different relation-
ships between the center and its warrior populations, two aspects of which
are noteworthy: the mobility and utilization of diverse ethno-religious
nomadic and warrior populations, and the expansion of the askeri (military)
population via the redistribution of the wealth of the state. What is striking
in this context, as compared to European armies of this later period, is
the proportion of horsemen (cavalry) that continued to be available to
the dynasty, either in state-financed auxiliary regiments, or as ethnically
constructed warrior bands, as contrasted to the European battlefields where
6 Hakan Erdem is very good on this: "Recruitment of 'Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad'".
The year 1908 was the first time there was a mobilization of "citizens" regardless of religion or
ethnicity. See also Aksan, "Ottoman Military and Social Transformations".
336
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
warfare turned to armed confrontations of large numbers of disciplined
infantrymen, and cavalry forces served very specific, increasingly limited
functions. The obsession with the northern frontier battlefront arc also led
in the Ottoman case to a neglect of the southern tier of the empire which
allowed for the expansion of nomadic and mobile populations, such as the
Bedouin and Kurdish tribes, who maintained autonomy by their original
submission to Ottoman hegemony and payment of annual tributes to the
central treasury.
Resat Kasaba has recently theorized that the persistence of mobile popu-
lations was facilitated by the important roles they played, such as protecting
the Hajj route caravans, and defending the Iranian border against Nadir
Shah in the early eighteenth century. The failure to impose sedentarization
on such tribal structures, however, ultimately caused the dynasty end-
less problems in the nineteenth century, especially in forging a modern,
conscripted, and disciplined military force from such populations. 7
By contrast, in both the Austrian and Russian contexts, fixing the
frontiers included efforts to settle what had once been zones of economic
and cultural exchange where warrior societies dominated. As the work
of Gunther E. Rothenberg and Carol B. Stevens has demonstrated, both
Habsburgs and Romanovs strove to settle autonomous warrior populations,
the former using Serbs and Croats for a military corridor, the latter engaging
to tame frontier populations such as the Cossacks by establishing military
colonies guarding the Russian territorial expansion to the south. 8 The
Ottomans faced a different problem. As the Ottoman Empire contracted
after 1700, demobilized soldiers flooded across newly agreed-upon borders,
and not all were absorbed, or could be absorbed, into the military environ-
ment. It is not insignificant that all the Habsburg-Ottoman treaties from
1699 on have specific clauses relating to how the two sides ought to deal
with frontier-transgressing soldiers. 9 The failure to settle demobilized
populations such as the janissaries crossing into the homeland from Europe
after 1700 is very significant, and virtually untouched in the research, the
exception perhaps being Vidin, where Rossitsa Gradeva and her colleagues
have ably described a city that shifted from being Ottoman hinterland to
7 Kasaba, A Moveable Empire; Aharoni, The Pasha's Bedouin, has interesting observations
about the contrast between Ottoman (Mehmed Ali) and French attitudes to Bedouin tribesmen.
8 Rothenberg, The Military Border in Croatia; Stevens, Soldiers on the Steppes; see also Stevens,
Russia's Wars of Emergence.
9 Smiley, "The Rules of War on the Ottoman Frontiers"; Aksan, "Whose Territory and Whose
Peasants?"
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850
337
Ottoman frontier garrison town after 1699. 10 Thus, the Ottomans had both
indigenous nomadic populations and unemployed, demobilized soldiers to
contend with as they undertook to reform the military system.
The Ottomans attempted to change the rules regarding tribal/state rela-
tionships as the need for the manpower and revenues of Arab and Kurdish
tribesmen became acute, especially in the long struggle with Mehmed Ali
Pasha of Egypt over greater Syria from 1821 to 1841. Historians now generally
allow that it is only then, when the Ottomans were trying to recover or
integrate lost or tenuously held territories such as the mountainous frontiers
of Albania or the Caucasus for the first time, that they can be said to have
acted as an internal colonial power by civilizing such martial populations.
The power of the tribal networks, paradoxically, is said to have expanded
in direct proportion to the state's interest in centralization and reform. 11
Stefan Winter's project on the rural history of Ottoman Syria in the nine-
teenth century is particularly instructive about the Ottoman application of
ethnographic labels to hitherto undifferentiated tribal groups as one aspect
of Ottoman (re) centralization projects. These were the populations, not just
Kurds and Bedouins, but also Albanians and Circassians, who remained
fiercely martial and proudly autonomous until the early 1900s, upon whom
the Ottoman dynasty came to rely for military labour. 12
The expansion of the military population
How do we define an Ottoman subject of the askeri class at the turn of
the eighteenth century? Recent, systematic work on the Ottoman idea of
political households and the devolution of state wealth as tax farms has had
10 Gradeva, "Between Hinterland and Frontier". Geza David and Pal Fodor have also edited two
volumes on Hungarian- Ottoman military aifairs-.Hungarian-Ottoman Military and Diplomatic
Relations in the Age of Suleyman the Magnificent and Ottomans, Hungarians and Habsburgs
in Central Europe. A recent dissertation, by Tolga Esmer, "A Culture of Rebellion", includes
significant evidence concerning the breakdown of askeri-reaya categories following 1699, and
especially in the long struggle between Selim III and Osman Pasvantoglu ofVidin.
11 Kasaba, A Moveable Empire, es pecially ch. 4.
12 Makdisi, "Ottoman Orientalism", discusses why the Ottomans should be seen as a colonial
power in the second half of the nineteenth century; Winter, "The Province of Raqqa under
Ottoman Rule", forms part of an extended project underway: "Tribes and Voivodes of Ottoman
Syria: A Rural History of the Early Modern Period". See also Kiihn, "Borderlands of the Ottoman
Empire in the 19th and Early 20th Century", with articles by Thomas Kiihn, Isa Blumi, Ryan
Gingeras and Charles Herzog. For the Yemen context, a late Ottoman colonial frontier, see
Willis, "Making Yemen Indian".
338
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
a great deal to tell us. 13 Tributary, clientage, and patronage relationships
were essential to the initial conquests of Ottoman territories as well as to its
later survival. In the seventeenth century, we see the expansion of elaborate
and expensive household systems which often included military units that
drew on the mercenary populations in the provinces. Such relationships,
conceptualized as political households, were built on the ability to com-
mand coalitions of soldiers and slaves, led by charismatic families who
acquired or wrested access to larger and larger parts of provincial revenues,
and maintained networks of communication and influence in Istanbul
as time went on. That the source of much of this manpower derived from
captured slaves turned valued members of an extended family may be the
unique aspect of the Ottoman context.
The greatest of the slave/political households was initially that of the
sultan and his "sons", the janissaries, and his harem. Emulating that
household at the Ottoman center were "native" families of influence,
organized similarly, and competing for the ranks of the ulema and the
central administrative offices. These could be made up of slaves (kuls) who
might even establish their own slave household. Such was the household
of Husrev Pasha, the notorious adviser of Mahmud II, whose Circassian
slave household populated much of the late nineteenth-century Ottoman
administration. 14 All members of the ruling class derived some privilege via
membership in these collectives, the askeri class largely writ, which meant
an intensification of competition for access to the resources of the state.
Such political households, replicated on a smaller scale in the provinces,
and including slave /client members, grew ubiquitous after the early seven-
teenth century. How this happened is just now unfolding as more and more
regional archival studies are published. The redistribution of state revenues,
from timars to tax farming, first annual and then life-term (maLikane), as
well as the widespread application of new, extraordinary taxes (avariz)
to support lengthy military campaigns, empowered the growth of such
local households who maintained representatives in Istanbul guarding
the interests of the particular household. This trend most represents a
similar devolution of state wealth in Bourbon France in the seventeenth
century, as exemplified by the military fiscalism of the centralizing state,
13 The most recent summary of the status of the research in Faroqhi, The Cambridge History
of Turkey, III, The Later Ottoman Empire, 7603-7S39, with articles by Bruce Masters, Christoph
Neumann, Virginia Aksan, Carter Findley, Dina Khoury, and Fikret Adanir on the subject of
political households and Ottomanization.
14 See especially C.A. Bayly's introductory article, "Distorted Development", in a volume of
comparative essays.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 339
and the creation of a class of provincial officials known as the intendants.
In the Ottoman case, the beneficiaries of the new system appear to have
been the janissaries. In other words, the sultans were forced to redistribute
the right to collect the tax revenues of the empire in order to procure the
large armies necessitated by the battlefields of the late seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
To what extent this development accelerated the integration of the janis-
sary corps into provincial elites and/or caused the collapse of the sipahi class
as a source of battle-ready manpower is still a question for debate. 15 What
is clear is that the eclipse of the sipahi class and the simultaneous loss of
control over the size and discipline of the janissary forces diminished the
Ottoman central capacity to organize warfare effectively. This required the
introduction of other methods of raising manpower, which led gradually
to the increased use of ethnically/regionally based autonomous bands as
described above. Their loyalties lay with their patrons, their households,
and their ethnic brotherhoods, but the source of their wealth ultimately
remained tied to the continuation of the dynasty. Hence, many authors now
refer to this period as the Ottomanization of the provinces, or the creation
of the Ottoman-local class, or even as the reaya-ization of the janissaries.
As Hiilya Canbakal notes regarding the Ottoman seventeenth-century
resemblance to European trends of the period: "modern state-formation
now appears to have involved successive stages of centralism and provincial
accommodation that resulted in the rejuvenation of the ruling class and
allowed the state to capitalize on wider economic and political resources".
She adds, "In the Ottoman case, the acquisition of stipends, posts and tax
farming contracts also made one an 'askeri, as did claiming descent from
the prophet Muhammad or entering a military corps. In other words, one
dimension of the process characterized as Ottomanization overlapped with
a formal transformation: the expansion of the 'askeri." 16
Canbakal's askeri class, defined according to a survey of 1697, but rooted in
long-time practice, included all those on stipends (preachers, prayer-leaders,
scribes, trustees of charitable organizations, tax collectors and overseers,
inhabitants of dervish convents, Quran reciters, and the like); semiprofes-
sional auxiliary troops; descendants of the Prophet; those providing special
services such as falcon-raisers, mountain pass guards, bridge-keepers, mes-
sengers, share-croppers on state land, rice cultivators, sheep producers,
15 As ably argued by Agoston, "Military Transformation in the Ottoman Empire and Russia".
16 Canbakal, Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town, pp. 62-63; Toledano, "The Emergence of
Ottoman-Local Elites"; Raduschev, "'Peasant' Janissaries?"
340
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
sheep and cattle dealers, copper miners, deputy judges, and city wardens;
and finally, janissaries and sipahis, that is, some 1,053 members or 36 per
cent of all the households. 17 The list reminds us of two things: that the askeri
class was made up of far more than just "soldiers", and that the competition
for certification by the center, which in some cases required reapplication
on an annual basis, must have been intense, necessitating the spidery webs
of households and patronage connections described by Barkey.
What had happened to the financial status of the soldiers in the survey
to move them to compete for local revenues as described? In brief, the
timariot/sipahi cavalryman, the original free Turkic warrior who was
essential to the success of the Ottoman dynasty, was rewarded by the as-
signment of noninheritable grants of land (dirliks) to support the soldier
and his entourage on campaign. By the mid-seventeenth century, the yields/
tax returns on such assignments no longer sufficed to entice the sipahis
away from their holdings to go on campaign, unless it was to preserve the
holdings themselves, by responding to the command either to turn up at the
battlefront or lose their entitlement. Their numbers averaged 50,000-80,000
depending on the size of the campaign throughout most of the seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries, but clearly were on the decline. By 1768, the
number of sipahis had become insignificant in contrast to the numbers
of temporarily hired troops, called levends, who were mobilized by local
provincial families or officials with central treasury funds. Orders for the
mobilization of as many as 80,000 such troops were sent to provincial of-
ficials for the campaign on the Danube in 1769. Ahmed Resmi Efendi, on
the battlefront at that campaign, noted that only a few old men claiming
to be timariots appeared, and that the janissaries were demanding they be
assigned a timar before they would fight, yet more evidence of the competi-
tion over local resources. 18
The janissary infantry system had emerged in the fourteenth century
as a strategy aimed at creating a force totally dedicated to the security and
perpetuation of the Ottoman house, in contrast to the voluntary commit-
ment of the sipahi cavalry. The janissaries added formidable matchlock/
flintlock firepower to the Ottoman arsenal. The effectiveness of both the
infantry and cavalry systems, however, diminished precipitously after their
peak around 1650. In the 1560s, the janissaries numbered some 12,800; in
1609 their ranks stood at 37,000, a number which remained fairly constant
until it approached 70,000 in the protracted war with the Habsburgs from
17 Canbakal, Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town, pp. 68-70.
18 Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 7700-7870, pp. 53-57.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 341
1683 to 1699, and 61,000 a hundred years later in the 1768-1774 war with the
Russians. 19 We know of at least two instances when the janissary muster
rolls were inspected: in 1688, 20,000 were struck from the registers; in 1771,
some 30,000 names were removed. 20
By the end of the eighteenth century, there may have been as many
as 400,000 janissaries on the sultan's payroll, but only 10 per cent of that
likely exaggerated number could be described as campaign-ready. Sultan
Selim Ill's (1789-1807) encounter with the inflated registers is recorded in
Ahmed Cevdet's history. The sultan responded angrily when his advisers
warned him that it would take decades to settle the claims and rectify the
registers in order to accumulate salaries for new recruits: "My God! What
kind of situation is this? Two of the barbers who shave me say they are
members of the artillery corps! If we call for soldiers, we are told What
can we do? There are no salaried soldiers to go on campaign.' Let others be
enrolled we say, and we are told 'There is no money in the treasury' If we
say, there must be a remedy, we are told 'Now is not the time to interfere
with the regiments.'" 21 Cevdet, an admirer of Selim III, is clearly exculpating
the sultan from complicity in the corruption evident in this story, but not
those around him. The burden of janissary privileges and entitlements
had become intolerable but resistant to reform because the entire ruling
class was benefiting from the sultan's largesse, much to Selim Ill's chagrin.
Selim III abandoned the accession price (the gift bonus to his janissaries
to secure their pledge of allegiance) because he had no money to pay for
it. Certainly part of that had to do with central janissary salaries, most of
which were paid out of the sultan's treasury. The annual Ottoman budget
of the later eighteenth century has been reckoned at somewhere around
15,000,000 kuru§. I once tried to establish how much was handed out as
salaries only to the KapikuLu janissaries (infantry, artillery, armoury only)
during the 1768-1774 war, and came up with an estimate for the war years
1769 to late 1771 of 6,005,453 kuru§. Z2 That gives us at least an idea of what
19 Agoston, "Empires and Warfare in East-Central Europe", pp. 128-129.
20 Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870, p. 52.
21 "Looking at a recent register of 'active' artillerymen, in order to estimate the financing
available for new recruits, he [Selim III] found that, of 1,059 troops listed, 33 were wounded, 90
were assigned to the foundry, 90 to the rapid infantry corps, 76 to the fire Ahmed Cevdet": Tarih,
1st edn, IV, pp. 265-266. The advisers, of course, were the chief beneficiaries of the corrupted
muster rolls.
22 The two main defters (tax registers) are from the Prime Minister's Archives in Istanbul,
Maliyeden Miidevver MM5970 and MM11786. The payroll (in cash) was carted to the Danube
battlefront in great caravans of oxcarts and counted when it arrived.
342
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
the largely dysfunctional fighting force was costing the dynasty in wages
during wartime, and does not take into account the provisioning of that
same force which was, after all, just a portion of the assembled manpower
estimated at 100,000 for that war. 23
Such numbers do not generally include the janissaries assigned to the
garrisons across the empire. These are the subject of our discussion here,
as they are the least visible, often melting into the reaya and merchant
classes and no longer able to be counted on as a fighting force. We have very
scattered information on the size and distribution of such forces, but a recent
discussion of the problem gives one rather astonishing figure (from 1761-1762)
of 55,731 central troops and 141,116 in the garrisons, for a total of 196,847. 24
Garrison janissaries were normally paid out of the cizye tax, but the
regiments in each of the garrisons had some autonomy over collection and
management of their salaries. The ocakkk system (tax farms assigned to
janissaries and local forces), while not universally applied, was certainly
in play at the main garrisons in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Tax revenues, such as the cizye, were organized as a tax farm for a particular
garrison. Initially, it appears that the revenues were controlled by central
officials and the proceeds were sent for distribution to the regiment in each
of the garrisons. Latterly, the collection and distribution of the revenues
appear to have been in the hands of garrison officers or other askeri of-
ficials. The janissaries and garrison regiments were self-governing, so it
would be natural for them to acquire a certain fiscal autonomy as well,
as is abundantly evident in the extant inheritance registers of the askeri
class. By the end of the eighteenth century, such resources must have been
considerably stretched, as Ottoman territories on the south shore of the
Danube became the Russo-Ottoman battlegrounds, and the size of the
garrisons increased. Belgrade, for example, had 4,917 janissaries in 1771,
which cost 189,544.5 kuru§ for wages and provisions. The cizyes in that case
were drawn from fourteen different areas, among them Edirne, Sofia, and
Thessaloniki; by 1779, there were 6,036 janissaries, whose wages and provi-
sions cost 240,821.5 kuru§, again paid by cizyes drawn from all over Rumeli.
Vidin, on the Danube, a true frontier fortress by 1700, had 7,863 janissaries
in 1771, at a cost of 344,240 kuru§, drawn from nineteen cizye sources. By
1779, there were 9,229 janissaries in the garrison, costing 416,813 kuru§, and
the list of the cizye sources had climbed to twenty-five, with many of the
places showing as unavailable (yok), an effect, no doubt, of the conditions
23 Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870, ch. 4.
24 Agoston, "Military Transformation in the Ottoman Empire and Russia", p. 304.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850
343
of war. 25 If, in fact, we accept the figure of 5,440 janissaries at Vidin in 1750,
recorded elsewhere, the evolution from a sipahi-based timariot force to the
militarized population of janissaries is striking. 26
By the end of the seventeenth century, the city of Aleppo, as another
example, contained a large number of rank-and-file soldiers (be§es) engaged
in all kinds of market crafts and transactions, including small amounts of
money-lending, tax collection and market enforcement. Charles Wilkins has
analyzed the ocaklik contracts of garrison members including one set up to
pay the military unit stationed in the citadels of Kars and Ardahan, some
considerable distance from Aleppo. Kars soldiers, mostly citadel guards,
managed their assignments by subcontracting them as tax farms to resi-
dents of Aleppo, including janissaries and ulema, as a means of increasing
their diminishing incomes.
Wilkins concludes that these soldiers could be likened to merchants of
modest to middling wealth, who show up in the court records as property-
owners and money-lenders. The career of one Ali ibn Shabib (d. 1678) is
instructive. He is first encountered in court records in 1640 as second-in-
command of a local garrison in the Aleppo region, probably of Arab origin,
already involved in operating (renting) a watermill, and responsible for
collecting certain fees his regiment owed to officials in the city. By 1657,
he is still recorded as the second-in-command of the garrison, is listed
as a tax-collector with the high status rank of agha, but has also become
a prominent member of the water miller's guild of the city. As Wilkins
notes, "The likelihood [is] that soldiers, as they took up trades and crafts,
absorbed the cultural norms of their nonmilitary colleagues, thereby dis-
placing or weakening concepts of hierarchical command authority. This
process was probably more important than the reverse, of merchants and
artisans adopting military norms, since many of these made no pretense
of pursuing military training and merely sent proxies when called to serve
on campaigns." 27
Damascus provides another example of the military diversification
and expansion. In 1708, the Damacus governor was relieved of sending his
usual contingent of janissaries (500) to imperial campaigns in exchange
for charging the local military forces to serve as guardians of the Hajj
pilgrimage caravans as described above, and sending a sum of money as
an exemption fee (bedel), one more way the state might raise revenues for
25 Prime Minister's Archives D.B§M 4274, dated 1185-1193 (1771-1779).
26 Gradeva, "Between Hinterland and Frontier", pp. 340-341.
27 Wilkins, Forging Urban Solidarities, p. 197.
344
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
military participation (or lack of it) from the provinces. The Damascus
military population of the time includedyer//s (local janissaries; elsewhere
they might be designated as guards); the Kapikulu or imperial janissar-
ies, ordered to Damascus after a major rebellion of the mid-seventeenth
century; local mercenaries in the governor's entourage, variously described
as Anatolian levends, Kurdish musketeers, and North African mercenaries;
and, finally, the timariot cavalry, which had ceased to exist by the turn of
the eighteenth century, with their estates likely reassigned to local ayans
(warlords; provincial notables or elites) or janissaries. It is tantalizing
to speculate that the mercenary population grew as the timariot/sipahi
population declined. 28
That the warrior populations came to be such a large part of actual cam-
paign forces testifies to the Ottoman difficulties with regulating military
budgets, recapturing control over the monopoly on violence, and negotiat-
ing effectively with mobile, warrior subjects. As we have seen, there is
much allusion to the problem in the literature, and significant work on the
provincial families and economic factors contributing to their rise after
1650. Very little empirical work has been published on the size, extent,
and impact of the new means of mobilizing sufficient manpower for the
battlefields of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Janissaries
consistently failed to show up for major campaigns and, when they did so,
they clamored for lands vacated by sipahis as a means of support; bands
of warriors, with regional and occasionally ethnic loyalties, increasingly
replaced them as military labour. What is discernable in the information
available to date is a further evolution from diverse, eclectic auxiliaries in
1700-1750 and the increased reliance on ethnic warrior bands, for example,
the Albanians, particularly during the first Russo-Ottoman War in 1768-
1774. The systems (janissary and levends, with the gradual disappearance of
the sipahis) overlapped and intertwined until 1826 at least. The Ottomans
moved to a conscript army in the mid-nineteenth century, but ba§ibozuk
regiments were included as auxiliaries even then.
Auxiliary cavalry and infantry regiments 1700-1750
By the late seventeenth century, a provincial governor was expected to
arrive on campaign accompanied by 200 of his private entourage and 1,000
28 Uyar and Erickson, A Military History of the Ottomans, p. 108, based on the work of Abdul-
Karim Rafeq.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 345
to 2,000 /evercc/recruits, both infantry and cavalry. By the 1720s, these latter
were paid either by way of tax privileges (imdad-i seferiye, special cam-
paign taxes and/or cash) for the provincial governor or other local officials
(called kapi halki); through tax farming; or directly out of the sultan's purse
(miri Levendat). It was the local officials, in other words, who had become
military contractors. If statistics are to be believed, this system expanded
a hundred-fold from the siege ofVienna in 1683 to the first Russo-Ottoman
campaign of the 1768-1774 war. According to one estimate, 97,000 such
soldiers participated in the 1769 campaign, meaning perhaps as many as
100,000-150,000 levends may have initially been mobilized for the campaigns
on the Danube and the Black Sea. 29 Orders describing how they were to be
mobilized, both infantry and cavalry, reveal the understanding of the state
concerning their length of employment and salary, as well where they might
come from and the problem of control over such troops.
For example, an order to the governor of the province of Anatolia is
quite explicit. Beginning with the statement that their misbehaviour was
the cause of much harm to the countryside, especially as they had not seen
service and rations due to the lack of campaigns, the order announces
the coming campaign with Russia, and the urgent need for manpower. It
continues by extending an amnesty to any miscreants, and emphasizing
the necessity of gathering them up for the spring offensive. Included in the
order is the reference to the local provincial officers (mutasarnfs, governors
of sancaks, subdivisions of a province) as responsible for the organization
of the provincial troops.
Such orders were usually for companies (boliiks) of fifty levends. Spelled
out were the monthly salary, expressed in six months' lump sums, or in
two months for an extension, for passage to the battlefront, for fortress
duty, etc.; a signing-on bonus (called a bah§i§, an incentive); a 10 per cent
commission for the officers; and a calculation oiyevmiye, or daily rations.
Except for their temporary status, these soldiers on paper were being treated
in ways which approximated the janissaries. Exhortations were included
that recruits be upright, handsome Muslims, and that they be guaranteed
by their local communities, who would serve as their guarantors in the case
of desertion. Local officials were responsible for the selection of officers
(and often served in that capacity). There is no mention of arms in these
documents, so one presumes that these recruits were to bring their own
weapons, perhaps part of the explanation for the hefty signing-on bonus
29 Aksan, "Whatever Happened to the Janissaries?", p. 29, "Ottoman Military Recruitment
Strategies in the Late Eighteenth Century".
346
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
of 12 kuru§ for an infantryman and 25 for a horseman, the difference likely
to do with the possession of a horse. Monthly salaries ran at 2.5 kuru§.
Equally interesting is the inclusion in these documents of expected rations.
The Levend infantryman at war was expected to need a daily intake of a
double loaf of bread (100 dirhem or roughly 320 g), or 50 dirhem of biscuit
(peksimed 160 g), and was allowed half an okka of meat (641 g); a half kite
(12-13 kg) of fodder barley for the packhorses of fifty men. The cavalryman
was entitled to the same amount of bread, but only 100 dirhem (320 g) of
meat, and additionally 100 dirhem of rice (320 g), 25 dirhem (80 g) of cooking
oil or fat, and a yem of barley, roughly 6.5 kg per day per man.
In reality, most of this must have remained highly hypothetical, as the
provisioning system for the campaign of 1769 broke down completely.
Evidence at least of one effort to recruit such state commissioned regiments
provides us with a good indication of the difference between expectations
and reality. Historian § emidanizade, serving as a judge in Tokat, in Anatolia,
in 1771, was required to enlist 1,500 soldiers (he calls them janissaries, but
they must have been levends) to be sent to Ochakov on the Black Sea. He
picked 1,500 of 6,000 volunteers, rejectingboth young and old, and organized
some 1,500 for the battlefront. He later encountered some of the same troops
in Sinop, and discovered that each company (of fifty) had been reduced to
eleven men and a commander. He was told that the Tokat governor had
excused the men from service for a payment of 25 kuru§ (the signing-on
bonus given the men?), which they split and pocketed. 30
On the battlefront in 1769, Ahmed Resmi observed the arrival of the
troops from Anatolia. Clearly, he noted, the provincial governors recruited
thieves and the homeless and then were held captive by them - at every
hamlet or bridge-crossing, the men demanded salaries and bonuses and
caused no end of trouble in the camp. While individual commanders arrived
with enough men for a battalion, in three days, they could not raise even
100 men. And even should the commanders bring the requested 500 or 1,000
men, they continued to demand pay and rations for any participation in the
war effort, and tended to wreak havoc on the countryside when left idle,
especially as fodder and food became scarce. 31
The reliability and loyalty of such troops were obviously acute problems,
as determined by the financial stability and disciplinary control of the state,
and whether it was able (or willing) to redistribute provincial revenues
for the benefit of local officials. By 1775, the term Levend had assumed
30 Aksan, "Whatever Happened to the Janissaries?", pp. 31-33.
31 Ibid., pp. 34-35.
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 347
such disrepute that it was expunged from the official vocabulary of the
Ottoman documents but, as with other such labels, the term persisted into
the nineteenth century. Other terms began to emerge, such as the older
sekban, deli, and ba§ibozuk, which very often signified ethnic warrior bands.
Ethnic warrior bands 1750-1850
That is not to suggest that bands of levends could not just as well have
been organized as local, ethnic, or regional companies. It is simply that the
mobile populations discussed above start to appear in large numbers in
the documentation after the 1770s as warrior ethnic groups such as Kurds,
Albanians, and Circassians. While the levends, volunteer military labor,
still have a whiff of the coerced about them, these warrior bands emerge
as entirely autonomous guns-for-hire, like Mustafa Vasfi of Kabud cited at
the beginning of this chapter, and are labeled with their ethnicity in an
era when nationalism had begun to emerge as part of regional identities.
The first significant use of such warrior bands show up in the Morea
Rebellion of 1770, when unrest and Russian instigation, along with the
demands of the ongoing war, triggered a violent rebellion of the Greek
Orthodox population of the Morea. The Peloponnese was yet another of
the militarized frontiers I have described above, especially since it had
been recovered by the Ottomans only in 1715. Vlachopoulou describes the
emergence of a local class of Christian officials, the kocaba§is, who both
collaborated and contested with the officials of the new government and
with the increased presence of the askeri class. 3 * The state records of this
period indicate considerable unrest and a lack of stability around resources
and tax-collection, much as we have seen elsewhere. In 1770, then Morean
governor Muhsinzade Mehmed, charged with putting down the rebel-
lion of the Greeks, hired levends, most of who turned out to be Albanians
previously destined for the Danube battlefront. Some 10,000-20,000 troops
obviously disturbed the demographics of the peninsula, but also proved to
be a disaster as, once they had brutally suppressed the revolt, they refused to
leave and entered the contestation over local property and other resources.
Muhsinzade Mehmed is said to have recruited some 75,000 troops from
what Nagata calls mahalli kuvvetleri, or regional forces, to quell the revolt,
32 Vlachopoulou, "Like the Mafia?"
348
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
and he did so by taking loans from the regional notables, which he officially
recognized as ayans. 33
The 1787-1792 Russo-Ottoman war saw an increased use of such regional,
contractual forces because the central janissaries were simply not prepared
to fight. For the 1790-1791 season, for example, Selim III reputedly could
find only 6,000 combat-ready janissaries out of a reputed 30,000 in the
city, and of those only 1,000 made it to the battlefront. The rest fled within
a day's march of Istanbul. The payroll records were packed with retirees
and noncombatants, some 50,000 or more even after Selim Ill's experiment
with creating new troops, assembling perhaps 10,000 before the rebellion in
1807 which removed him from the throne. Quite apart from the fraudulent
records, the janissaries had legitimate complaints about arrears in their own
pay, about the higher salaries given to the new troops, about the conditions
of the barracks, about the insufficiency of their rations, and about the state
of the bread specially baked for the corps. 34
Meanwhile, on the Danube, the blending of peasant and soldier con-
tinued apace, particularly during the 1787-1792 war. Demographic shifts,
occurring multiple times in the long Habsburg-Ottoman-Russian struggles
along the frontiers, had seriously altered the landscape of the Ottoman
borderlands, and created large numbers of landless and masterless men
as previously described. Serbian Orthodox peasants crossed into newly
defined Habsburg territories. Tatars and Circassians, chased from Crimea,
moved into Romania and Bulgaria in the 1780s following the Russian uni-
lateral occupation of the former Ottoman territories, joining the janissaries
already mentioned, who were in effect "coming home" after a hundred years
of service in Hungary.
Selim III had little choice but to make use of such readily available
manpower for the battlefields of 1787-1793. He called upon the provincial
power-brokers, such as Yanyah Ali Pasa (of Iannina, Greece), Pasvantoglu
Osman Pasa (of Vidin), and Alemdar Mustafa Pasa (of Ruse, Bulgaria), to
name but three, to defend the borders with their sekbans, the word which
replaced levend. After peace was declared with Russia and Austria, these
same locally raised armies were called upon to put down Pasvantoglu's
ongoing bid for self-government in Vidin on three separate occasions, all
of which failed. Pasvantoglu died in his bed in 1807.
33 Nagata, Muhsinzade Mehmed Pa§a ve Ayanlik Muessessi. The Albanians (Shkiptar) here
described were likely Tosks of the mountainous region of Albania.
34 Sunar, "Ocak-i Amire'den Ocak-i Mulga'ya Dogru".
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 349
Tolga Esmer has vividly described the culture of anarchy and banditry
- which had sekbans becoming kirca'alis (a place name that came to refer
to particular bandits) and back to sekbans - that dominated the frontier
from the 1750s onward. "[T]he borderlands allowed for new, alternative ways
of making a living that spread like a contagion, eventually luring anyone
from the humblest Rumeli Christians to the highest vezir from Istanbul and
Anatolia into Rumeli and into the networks of violence [...]" 35
However one interprets the ethnicity of these troops, and fixes their date
of origin, the important aspect is that they are ubiquitous beginning in the
Greek rebellion period (1821-1831). First and foremost, Mehmed Ali of Egypt
derives from that context, and it was his own Albanian troops, sent to Cairo
in the Ottoman fight against Napoleon, who helped raise him to power in
Cairo in the contest with the last of the mamluks.Jezzar Ahmed Pasa, com-
mander of the fortress of Acre, of Bosnian background and mamluk (Cairo)
experience, was known for employing only foreign troops, and regularly
hired, for multiple campaigns, mercenaries from the Maghreb, Albanian
cavalry, and Bosnian infantry, as well as delis, who have been described as
Kurds or Turkmen. He paid them well and with his army (perhaps as many
as 4,000-5,000 troops of mixed origins) he successfully defended Napoleon s
assault on Acre as ally of the British. In cooperation with the imperial army
that marched overland from Istanbul to Cairo in 1799-1801, Jezzar sent
detachments of 500 Albanians from time to time to the imperial camp at
Jaffa. William Wittmann, eyewitness to the British-Ottoman campaign
to oust Napoleon's remaining troops from Egypt, observed their comings
and goings, commenting on how often the Albanians mutinied when the
grand vizier tried to muster them, and how they frequently deserted. He
notes particularly the ongoing quarrels between the Albanians and the
janissaries, still very numerous, but impossible to recognize as the troops
of old in a campaign which also introduced the first of Selim IIEs reformed
troops. 36
The later extensive revolts of the Albanians derived, as suggested above,
from the simultaneous effort to draw them into a recentralized state and
conscript them for battles between Mahmud II and Mehmed Ali of Egypt.
A final example of the persistence of the ethnic-band mentality and volun-
teerism is evident in documentation around the 1828-1829 Russo-Ottoman
War where discussion among military planners indicates the ongoing
35 Esmer, "A Culture of Rebellion", p. 75.
36 Wittman, Travels in Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria and Across the Desert into Egypt during the
Years 1799, 1800 and 1801, pp. 141-149.
350
VIRGINIA H. AKSAN
difficulties of enrolling the Albanian Tosks in particular, of making them
wear uniforms and of getting them to enlist either in the regular army or
as basibozuks. The many Albanian rebellions of the period are evidence of
a resistance not just to the Ottoman effort to "colonize" them but also to
the attempt to force them into a disciplined military environment. To what
extent they might also have been national uprisings belongs to another
discussion, but it is easy to see how the requirements of the besieged state
and the last warrior populations of the Ottoman frontiers were inimical. 37
The Fighting for a Living template
The Ottomans seemingly evolved from a slave/standing army/state com-
mission army to an aggregate contract to a conscript army. Can we assume
that the countryside at large participated willingly (to the degree that that
word can be allowed in early modern societies) in the war efforts, until the
worsening of the economic capacity of the Ottomans to promulgate war
made participation dangerous and unprofitable? So what made these bands
continue to sign on?
Of our possible permutations for this project, I believe it is the entrepre-
neurial aspects, that is, the emergence of the world market economy in the
seventeenth century, which drew much of the participation in this context.
I think the Ottoman demand for manpower, and the easily accessible (and
willing) labour market as the empire drew inwards are determinants of
some of the policies and the behavior we can see. The records indicate that
they were paid - in cash - or with rights to the tax revenues of the state,
and found little to deter them from plundering their enemies or even their
fellows.
To the list of our hypotheses for the emergence and dominance of state-
supported militias and warrior-band recruits in the period 1650-1850, 1 need
to add another: because it was already a way of life which increased dramati-
cally with the shifting populations and worsening economic conditions of
the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The political households
that emerged were strengthened themselves by the system and reluctant to
surrender whatever support (tax farms, extraordinary campaign taxes, and
other privileges) that came with the military "contracts". In other words, the
37 Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 7700-7870, pp. 352-356; Anscombe, "Islam and the Age of Ottoman
Reform"; Hakan Erdem discusses the thinking of the Ottoman commanders about how to engage
Albanian chiefs and their soldiers in '"Perfidious Albanians' and 'Zealous Governors'".
MOBILIZATION OF WARRIOR POPULATIONS IN THE OTTOMAN CONTEXT, 1750-1850 351
Ottoman need for manpower not only facilitated the emergence of powerful
provincial notables, it also sanctioned the flourishing of a style of life for
the individual warrior/soldier that persisted into the twentieth century.
I will leave you with a quote from a recent study of the early nineteenth-
century Greek/Albanian context. Lack of Ottoman systemic control over
that region produced a particularly strong paramilitary culture, as we have
seen, where "the development of strong patron-client relations seemed
the only socio-political mechanism left for survival. Hence, despite their
shortcomings as far as the maltreatment of the Greek peasants is concerned,
men who bore arms in such difficult times were highly respected by the
agrarian population." 38
In sum, post-1650 Ottoman military failures were largely administrative,
not technological, and not so much organizational as economic. Just as
Europe moved to social discipline and uniformity of its military forces,
incorporating "native" troops in regimental fashion, the Ottomans went
native, and came to rely on a federative, mercenary, or paramilitary force
for the maintenance of its remaining territories on the Danube and in
Greater Syria.
38 Karabelias, "From National Heroes to National Villains", p. 266.
Military employment in Qing dynasty
China
Christine Moll-Murata and Ulrich Theobald
This chapter explores the military structures in China between 1650 and
1900 from the perspective of labour history as devised by the Global Col-
laboratory on the History of Labour Relations 1500-2000. It will first present
the basic structures of the Qing armies. There follows a discussion of the
state of the art in research and the major issues and debates in this field.
Finally, the authors assess trends and tendencies in the framework of the
matrix of hypotheses developed within the research group Fighting for a
Living.
The Qing armies, 1600-1911: a short overview
The Manchu Qing dynasty ruled China between 1644 and 1911. It originated
from semi-nomadic groups of the Jurchen confederation who lived scattered
across the today's north-eastern Chinese provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and
Heilongjiang. These groups defined themselves as ethnically and cultur-
ally distinct from their mighty numerous, and affluent neighbours in the
south-west, the Chinese or "Han", and began to refer to themselves as "Man"
or "Manchus". 1 After 1600, their unifier, Nurhaci (1559-1626), organized his
followers into socio-military units or companies. Family members and
dependants were also registered in the military households. As far as our
knowledge goes, "followers" implies the entire population that had pledged
allegiance to Nurhaci, voluntarily or by force. In 1615, these companies were
officially divided into the so-called Eight Banners. Not only the Manchus
were grouped into these formations, but also Mongols, Koreans, and Chinese
who had either lived in the areas north of the Great Wall or had submitted
to the Manchus before they started their conquest of China proper in 1644.
In 1635, Nurhaci's son and successor Hong Taiji (r. 1626-1643) divided the
Banners along ethnic lines, with a Manchu, a Mongol, and a Chinese (the
latter also called the "Chinese-martial") Banner assigned to each of the
1 On the fluid and "inherently transactional" concept of ethnicity, see Elliott, The Manchu
Way, p. 17.
354
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
eight, resulting in an actual number of twenty-four Banners. The Banners
were assigned different colours, according to the flags and uniforms they
carried into and wore during battle. Their organization was dissolved only
after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1912.
Precise and factual figures are unavailable and are subject to much recent
debate. Roughly speaking, the estimates for the entire Banner population,
including men, women, children, elderly, and dependants (bondservants
and slaves) z range between 1.3 million and 2.4 million in 1648, and 2.6
million to 4.9 million in 1720. The potential combat forces, that is, the entire
male population between the ages of ten and sixty, may have been between
300,000 and 500,000 in 1648, and 850,000 to 1.6 million in 1720. However,
according to one source, only one in three men in a military company
actually engaged in combat. 3 The number of companies has been estimated
as slowly increasing from some 200 in 1614, to around 500 at the time of
the completion of the conquest and assumption of rule over the previous
Ming Empire (1368-1644), and 1,155 by 1735. 4 A competing estimate that
assumes the higher figures of companies given in the Qing statutes, 320
Manchu, 131 Mongol, and 171 Chinese Banner companies in 1644, arrives at
a total of 168,600 men, which can be broken down into 96,000 Manchus,
39,300 Mongols, and 51,300 Chinese troops. 5 The Banners also included a
small number of Russians from the post of Albazin, of the peoples of the
2 Bondservants (Manchu boot) were different from slaves (aha) in their status of being allowed
to constitute special, hereditary bondservant companies attached to the Banners. Some of them
played an important role in the management of the Imperial Household Department. Most of
them were Manchus (in contrast to slaves, the larger number of whom were Chinese) and were
affiliated to other, socially superior Manchu households. Although part of the Manchu conquest
group, they nevertheless occupied a marginal position that made them entirely dependent on
the throne for their status. While slaves worked in the fields, the booi were primarily used in
domestic (and military) service. Evelyn Rawski and Susan Naquin are not so sure whether the
bondservants were ethnically Manchu in their majority but instead say that they were Chinese
captives from the period of conquest. See Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 81-84, 462 n. 95. See also
Rawski, The Last Emperors, p. 167, as well as Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth
Century, p. 7.
3 Fang, "A Technique for Estimating the Numerical Strength of the Early Manchu Military
Forces", p. 204, based on statistics in the Baqi tongzhi. Late nineteenth-century observers speak
of a strength of all Banner forces of 400,000 troops, 157,000 of them garrisoned in the provinces.
See Heath, Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia, II, China, p. 28.
4 Fang, "A Technique for Estimating the Numerical Strength of the Early Manchu Military
Forces", pp. 208-209. Fang states that no new companies were established after 1735 (p. 204).
Various estimates of the number of companies in the early period exist; most scholars agree
upon the number of roughly 300 soldiers per company for the period before 1644; thereafter,
one company was formed of 100 to 200 men of service age.
5 Luo, Laying bingzhi, p. 1.
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
355
Solun, Daghur, Sibe, or Olod (formerly Dzungars), and troops of certain
other Mongol tribes like the Chahar or Bargut. The Banner soldiers were
mainly cavalry troops, but there were also infantry platoons and specialized
musketeers and cannoneers, as well as a few garrisons of naval troops,
both maritime and fluvial. 6 The Banner troops displayed their highest
efficiency as combat troops in the initial phase of conquest of China proper,
the territory south of the Great Wall previously ruled by the Ming dynasty.
The Ming armies, as David M. Robinson explains in this volume, were
formally bound to hereditary service, but a variety of forms of mercenary
employment existed as well. While it is difficult to weigh the relative im-
portance of the two types of labour relations in military occupations, we
can assume that such legal arrangements were not entirely superseded. 7 In
any case, the efforts of the Ming to hold out against the military challenges
of the Qing and internal rebellions required large amounts of military pay,
no matter whether the labour relations were tributary or commodified;
or, rather, such efforts would have required large expenditures. According
to the fiscal historian Ray Huang, even repeated tax increases after 1618
remained, from a military point of view, a "slow and ineffectual mobilization
of the empire's financial resources", which led to desertions to the bands of
peasant rebels, 8 or eventually to the Manchus. The garrisons of the capital
Beijing had gone without pay for five months when the city fell in 1644. 9
The initial phase of Qing conquest roughly corresponds to the period
1600 to 1680. In a "second wave" of Qing conquest and expansion towards
the north, west, and south-west (1680-1820), 10 other - Han Chinese - armies
became equally important as combat forces. This started out with the
Kangxi emperor's (r. 1662-1722) campaigns against the Russians in Albazin
(1685-1686), against the Dzungars, a confederation of western Mongolian
nomadic people in Central Asia (1696), and against Dzungarian influence in
Tibet (1705-1706, 1720). In the middle and late eighteenth century, Kangxi's
grandson, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) expanded the territory under
Qing influence far into Inner Asia. Furthermore, he conducted military
campaigns against what could be perceived as interior rebellions: in 1787-
6 Huangchao tongdian, p. 70.
7 Huang, "The Ming Fiscal Administration", p. 153, points out that "In the early sixteenth
century, mercenaries had already begun to outnumber regular members of the wei-so garrisons
in several northern frontier commands. Being mercenaries, the new personnel expected to be
paid regularly."
8 Ibid., pp. 167-168.
9 Ibid., p. 168.
10 Crossley, "The Conquest Elite of the Ch'ing Empire", p. 313.
356
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
1788 against a rebellion of Fujian immigrants in Taiwan (which had been
incorporated into the Qing empire in 1683), and in 1795 against the ethnic
group of the Miao 11 in the inland provinces of Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.
Although the emperor had styled himself "the old man of the ten completed
campaigns", "completion" implying "victory", some of the campaigns against
unruly border tribes and neighbouring tribute states ended in disaster
or inconclusively, such as those against Burma (1766-1769) and Vietnam
(i 7 88-i 7 9i)- 12
After 1644, the Eight Banners were employed as garrison forces in most
Chinese provinces, with the highest concentration in Beijing and on the
northern and western borders and with the lower density in the east and
south. 13 The inland provinces of Jiangxi, Anhui, Yunnan, Guizhou, and
Guangxi had no Banner garrisons. 14 At all times, the Banner people were
largely outnumbered by the Han Chinese, who by 1644 may have numbered
between 100 million and 150 million, and by 1776 about 260 million 15 as
against a maximum of 4.8 million Banner people of all ethnicities.
For the defence of the Chinese interior, the Qing relied on an army of Han
Chinese soldiers under the command of Han Chinese officers subordinated
to the Manchu superstructure of the provincial administration. 16 This was
the so-called Green Standard Army or the Green Battalions (luying bing). 17
Its figures are usually assessed as three times higher than those of the Eight
11 "Miao" is a rather general term for all non-Chinese ethnic peoples in south-west China.
12 Woodside, "The Ch'ien-lung Reign", pp. 25iff., points out that the "ten campaigns" refers to
the wars between 1747 and 1792, which were carried out, in chronological sequence in: 1747-1749
against the Tibetan rebels in western Sichuan's Gold River Valley (Jinchuan); 1755 and 1756-1757
against the Dzungars in Central Asia; 1758 against Turkic Muslim rebels in eastern Turkestan;
1766-1770 against the Konbaung dynasty in Burma; 1771-1776 once more in the Gold River Valley;
1787-1788 against a rebellion in Taiwan; 1788-1789 against dynastic quarrels in Vietnam; and
in 1790-1792 two expeditions against the Gurkhas of Nepal who had invaded Tibet. The 1795
expeditions against the Miao in Yunnan and Hunan were not included.
13 Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power, p. 9, characterizes the garrison structure as
semi-circles centring on Beijing; Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 94-96, describes four networks
of garrisons guarding Beijing, the metropolitan area around Beijing, Manchuria, and the north-
western frontier, and the Chinese provinces as "defense chains".
14 Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 369, Appendix C.
15 Shepherd, Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, p. 430, Appendix D3: "Area
and Population of the Eighteen Provinces in the Late Eighteenth Century", based on 1776 figures
in the historiographic work Qingchao wenxian tongkao, ch. 19 (1936 Commercial Press edn).
16 Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power, p. 12.
17 Luying is a special reading used for this term. The alternative reading is luying. See Hanyu
da cidian, haiwaiban (Hong Kong, 1993), IX, p. 924, and Xing, " 'Lii/luying' de duyin", p. 88.
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
357
Banners. 18 The role of the Green Standard Army is less well documented
and researched than that of the Eight Banners. It is agreed that it drew its
personnel from surrendered Ming armies, 19 from volunteers, and from local
corps. 20 The Green Standards consisted of both marine and land forces. The
main functions of the Green Standards were, besides fighting in battle,
those of a constabulary: patrolling on land and water, guarding government
institutions such as granaries, capturing criminals and rebels, performing
counter-insurgency activities, escorting important and precious convoys,
such as copper for use in the provincial and capital mints or grain tributes
for the capital, and transporting official mail and dispatches. 21
The decline of this army commenced in the early nineteenth century and
became sorely visible in the defeat during the First Opium War (1839-1842).
This mid-century watershed stands at the beginning of the last phase of the
Qing dynasty, which was marked by the struggle against internal enemies
- the White Lotus, Taiping, Nian, and Muslim insurgencies, to name just
the most important. In addition, the foreign intrusion that started with the
First and was aggravated after the Second Opium War (1856-1860) led to a
series of armed conflicts with the larger west European nation-states as
well as the United States, Japan, and Russia, and culminated in the Boxer
uprising (1900-1901), when the internal and the external problems of the
Qing converged.
Already in the eighteenth century, village militia (xiangyong, "Braves
of the Townships") were occasionally recruited by the local magistrates
of some regions. The permanent deployment of Green Standard troops
to campaigns in the border regions had deprived these townships and
districts of their constabulary forces. In order to keep up public security, it
had become necessary to recruit additional personnel on an ad hoc basis.
Not much information is available about the payment procedures and the
level of payment for these militia troops during the decades around 1800.
During the Taiping rebellion (1850-1864), this method was transformed from
18 Luo, Luying bingzhi, p. 1; Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 128; Crossley, Orphan Warriors, p. 117,
who quotes the figures 200,000 for Banner troops and 600,000 for Green Standard soldiers.
This 1:3 ratio does not seem quite convincing in view of the more recent estimate by Elliott.
However, with the important qualification that only one in every three Bannermen was actu-
ally called up to active service, this numerical relation seems to tally with reality. In the late
nineteenth century, western observers quote the figure of 400,000 Green Standard troops, as
indicated by Prince Ronglu: Heath, Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia, II, China, p. 28.
19 Luo, Luying bingzhi, p. 13.
20 Powell, The Rise of Chinese Military Power, p. 11.
21 Luo, Luying bingzhi, pp. 115-272.
358
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
a temporary solution to standard practice to ensure the public safety of local
regions, and another, new type of army came into being. These regional
armies or yongying "Brave Battalions" (with a membership reckoned at
about 300,000) were formed from several provincial armies that had stood
under the command of powerful individual commanders, such as the
Hunan army or the Anhui army. 22 Western and Chinese scholars generally
agree that these military organizations saved the Qing dynasty from an
early demise - although they were supported by a small contingent of about
3,000 mercenary European and US troops, the so-called Ever-Victorious
Army, as well. 23 Manifold attempts were made to reinvigorate the Qing army,
combining Green Standard ranks and officers with Brave Battalion methods
of recruitment and employment, and adapting to western weaponry and
training methods. The increasing recruitment of non-military personnel
to replace the traditional professional armies of the Eight Banners and the
Green Standards led, in the eyes of some scholars, to a subtle militarization
of the local government. 24
Finally, as in the case of the Ming dynasty, arrangements with allied
non-Han chieftains (tusi, "local administrators") in the border areas who had
accepted the suzerainty of the Qing emperors included that their soldiers, if
necessary, would fight for the Qing. This was less the case with the western
Mongols and the Kirgiz who were generally held to be very strong and a
match for the Manchus. In contrast, the native tribes of China's south-west
(the Miao), of Tibet, Taiwan, and the Muslim city-states of the Tarim Basin
were dealt with in a time-tested method by "using barbarians against the
barbarians" (similar to the tenet of divide et impera). This means that a
submissive native lord or king (of "matured barbarians") dispatched his
own native troops to fight against his neighbour or adversary (the "raw
barbarians"). In many cases this was the preferable, because cheaper, method
to pacify unruly tribes in the border regions. On the other hand, the col-
laborating native lord could enlarge his territory and probably would have a
prestigious title bestowed upon him by the emperor. Yet this kind of indirect
rule over the native tribes proved ineffective and thus was gradually given
up in the course of the eighteenth century. Thereafter, the border regions
conquered by the Qingwere administered by imperial officials. The conquest
wars in the south-western region were thus waged by three different types of
22 Liu and Smith, "The Military Challenge", p. 202; Heath, Armies of the Nineteenth Century:
Asia, II, China, p. 28.
23 Liu and Smith, "The Military Challenge", p. 202; Kuhn, "The Taiping Rebellion", p. 305.
24 See Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China, pp. 211-225.
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
359
troops, namely Banner troops, Green Standard troops, and native or "ethnic"
troops. A typical proportion between Banner troops, Green Standard troops,
and native auxiliaries during an eighteenth-century war was about i:io:3. 25
State of the field and main debates
Though the study of Chinese military history is recently expanding in
China as well as abroad, military labour during the Qing dynasty remains
a relatively little-studied topic. The perspectives of ethicity, institutional
history, military finances, China's frontier wars, and the debates on Chinese
armies compared to armies worldwide offer important information and
possible points of departure for the study of military labour in the early
and mid-Qing dynasty armies.
Research into Manchu history has blossomed since the reopening of the
First Historical Archives of China in Beijing, which houses the most impor-
tant collection of Qing central government documents. The Eight Banners
as a social organization figures prominently in this field. Important studies
in English are Pamela Kyle Crossley's Orphan Warriors (specifically the
chapter entitled "The Conquest Elite of the Ch'ing Empire"), Mark Elliott's
The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial
China, and Joanna Waley-Cohen's The Culture of War in China: Empire and
the Military under the Qing. These scholars revise previous convictions
about the Qing dynasty, which saw the Manchus as largely adapting to
Chinese culture, especially to Chinese methods of civilian administration.
The main intention of this new approach to Qing history is to demonstrate
that a complex process of reciprocal influences continued throughout the
Qing reign. In their analyses of the role of ethnicity within the Banners,
this approach makes clear that the Manchus did not constitute a majority
in the Banners, (and in some Banner garrisons in particular), so that it is
not appropriate to simply equate "Banners" with "Manchus". Crossley's
study on the conquest elite stringently analyses the fate of the Han Chinese
or Chinese-martial within the Banners. 26 The Chinese-martial, who had
chosen to identify with the new rulers (but some of whom actually had
Jurchen or Korean origins), 27 were not treated as equals. Within the Banners
they lost prestige and credibility when three powerful Chinese-martial
25 Theobald, "The Second Jinchuan Campaign", p. 108.
26 Crossley, "The Conquest Elite of the Ch'ing Empire", pp. 321-326, 339-345.
27 Ibid., p. 321.
360
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
generals, Wu Sangui, Gengjingzhong, and Shang Kexi, who for their help in
the conquest of the Ming empire had received large territories in southern
China, later betrayed their allegiance to the Qing in order to establish
independent dynasties of their own. The three generals were defeated in
the War of the Three Feudatories (1673-1681).
Further armed resistance against the Manchus arose from several de-
scendants of the Ming dynasty who established the ephemeral Southern
Ming Dynasty (1644-1662), and from Ming loyalist generals who wielded
power in central and southern China. The last Ming loyalist polity under
the rule of the Zheng clan was defeated on Taiwan in 1683. The incorpora-
tion of the island into the mainland province of Fujian marks the final
consolidation of Qing rule in China.
Elliot in The Manchu Way makes important points about the reasons
why the Banner people, although they were styled as "martial elites" by
the emperors and the central government, became impoverished in the
course of the dynasty. This was due to two reasons: the Banner population
increased, and some Han Chinese falsely claimed to belong to the Banners
in order to enjoy the support of the state. 28 Therefore, the Qianlong emperor
incrementally expelled the Chinese-martial Banner households from the
Banner structure so that in the nineteenth century the equation of Banner-
man and Manchu corresponded to reality. 29 The state shouldered increas-
ingly larger burdens for the upkeep of these warriors and their dependants.
In a study on the military expenses in the Qing dynasty, Chen Feng cites
figures for the Xi'an garrison in 1735 that suggest that the expenses for
the support of Banner families and horses were much higher than those
for the soldiers and officers. 30 According to Elliott's estimates, as much as
one-quarter to one-fifth of state revenues was used for the living expenses
of less than 2 per cent of the population. 31 In comparison, the expenses for
the Green Standard Army, with about three times the personnel of the
28 For the "genealogical turn" in the early eighteenth century, when stricter proof of Banner
descent was demanded, see Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 326-333.
29 Ibid., pp. 342-344-
30 Chen Feng, Qingdaijunfeiyanjiu (Wuhan, 1992), p. 47, tables 2-12, cited in Elliott, The Manchu
Way, pp. 310-311, calculated that 42 per cent of the expenses in silver went on the wages of soldiers
and officers, 20.5 per cent for household dependants, and 37.5 per cent for horses; 7.4 per cent of
the grain disbursed was for officers and soldiers, 90.5 per cent for household dependents, and
2.1 per cent for the horses.
31 Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 311.
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
361
Banner Army, were higher in absolute terms but, at 27 to 32 per cent of state
revenue, much lower proportionally (if the 3:1 ratio is correct). 32
More economical ways of maintaining the Eight Banners might have
been possible. The options would have been, for instance, to relax the ban
on Banner people taking up occupations other than serving the state, or
to assign land in military colonies to the Banner people where they could
have organized their own upkeep. But the Qing state had other priorities,
so that the role of the Banners changed from being mainly fighters to the
display of the presence of the ruling elite in the capital and in the provincial
garrisons. 33
Monographs and studies on the Green Standard Army as an institution
are much rarer than on the Eight Banners. In 1945, Luo Ergang (1901-1997),
an eminent specialist on the Taiping rebellion, published a monograph
which still is cited as authoritative in present-day scholarship. Since his
focus is on the Taiping rebellion, the largest uprising in the Qing dynasty,
his particular interest was in the decline of these armies, which proved to be
quite inefficient by the 1850s, and their replacement by the new provincial
forces.
The differences between the Green Standard Army and the Eight Ban-
ners, and ultimately the question of why the Qing maintained two inde-
pendent armed forces, have long preoccupied military historians. Scholarly
consensus exists that, by the time of the Taiping rebellion, both were in bad
shape, poorly equipped, with low morale - with the qualification made by
Crossley in Orphan Warriors that the British were amazed at the fighting
spirit which the Manchus displayed during the attack on the garrison of
Zhapu near Shanghai in an episode of the First Opium War. 34 The Manchus
and the peasant population fought with "sticks, stones, rusted swords and
wick-fired matchlocks" against old-fashioned, but still functional British
flintlock rifles; hence their resistance was doomed. 35
As for the differences between the two kinds of armies, Luo Ergang points
out that the Eight Banner Army was concentrated in fewer garrisons, while
the Green Standards were widespread over the entire country, and unlike
the Eight Banners they were present in every province. The tasks of the
Green Standards were more varied, and lowlier than those of the Banners,
so that there was a clear hierarchy, also and especially in the pay scale,
32 Ibid., p. 310.
33 Ibid., p. 311.
34 Crossley, Orphan Warriors, p. 117.
35 Ibid., p. 118.
362
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
between the two. 36 Luo emphasizes that, nevertheless, the Green Standards
served more important functions than the Banners: their numbers were
greater, 37 and they were the better fighters. 38 There is a certain tendentious-
ness in this assessment. It was made at a time when the prestige of the Qing
dynasty and its ruling elite, the Manchus, was at a very low point. This
also highlights what may seem, in contrast, the somewhat apologetic and
perhaps romanticizing nuances in the great interest in the Eight Banners
shown in present-day China. The Qianlong emperor had already perceived
that there was a gap between the claim that the Manchus were warriors
dedicating their life to hunting, sports, and battle, and the fact that fewer
and fewer Manchus were able to hit the target in archery contests and to
speak Manchu. Yet when it came to substantial failure in war, the blame
was often shifted to the "cowardly" Green Standard units that deserted
rather than to fight the enemy. 39
The native troops were even less reliable because they often had family
relations with those they had to battle against. Most military successes of
the Qing armies in the eighteenth century were made possible only by the
massive deployment of elite Banner troops from Beijing (the Firearms and
Scouting Brigades) and the garrisons in the north-east, the homeland of
the Manchus. Also among the elite troops were the Olod Mongols who had
submitted to Qing suzerainty during or after the conquest of the Dzungars.
Thus, troops marching from Hi in the far west and from Aigun on the banks
of the Amur River in the north-east covered thousands of miles to reach
the battlefields in Sichuan, Burma, Taiwan, or even Nepal. The wars of
conquest in Dzungaria were predominantly waged by Banner troops. There
is evidence that suggests that the Banner troops did not simply stay in the
back while the Green Standard troops served as "cannon fodder". While
the proportion of Banner troops to Green Standard troops serving in a
war was typically 1:10, some examples demonstrate that the proportion of
36 Luo, Luying bingzhi, p. 6.
37 Ibid., p. 7.
38 Ibid., p. 9.
39 See, for example, the first assessment of the disaster of Mugom in 1773, when a large camp
was surprised and conquered by the enemy. The blame was laid on the "faint-hearted" Green
Standard troops. Instead of executing all of them (amounting to several thousand men), the
emperor spared their lives as he realized that they had to be supported and induced to fight
by more contingents of Banner troops. See Pingding Hang Jinchuan fanglue (Siku quanshu,
Wenyuange edn, digital version Zhongguo jiben gujiku, 65, edict of Qianlong 38/7 [s. 1. 6]/
dingyou=Q (this citation refers to the ninth day of the seventh lunar month in the year 38 of the
reign of the Qianlong emperor, or 28 July 1773)).
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
363
deaths on the part of officers in the Banners was 3:10 or even 7:10. 40 If this is
a representative sample, this would mean that proportionally many more
Banner officers died for their emperor and for fame and glory than their
colleagues in the Green Standards.
Due to the enhanced accessibility of archival documents, issues of
military finance and logistics offer a large field for new inquiries into Qing
military history. The ground-breaking study by Chen Feng has already
been mentioned. Recently, important publications in English have been
produced by Dai Yingcong. 41 At least as much as the study on ethnicity, this
monetary aspect relates to military labour in many ways. Dai Yingcong's
work on the Gold River (Jinchuan) campaigns is especially explicit about
labour conditions. Her studies highlight two distinct trends that stand in
close relationship to labour conditions and labour relations: the Qing state at
least formally put an end to corvee obligations, although they could remain
disguised below the surface of general tax duties. In the Gold River cam-
paigns, military employment was for the first time completely organized as
large-scale hired labour. Dai Yingcong quotes a figure of 462,000 military
labourers recruited in the six years of the second campaign (1771-1776) as
against 129,500 warriors. The workers were mainly porters, since the Qing
armies carried all their provisions and the silver for the soldiers' and officers'
wages with them.
The second trend was the increasing involvement of merchants or, in
other words, the representatives of the market in military finance. Alex-
ander Woodside has emphasized this on a much more general level, by
labelling the Qianlong emperor as "the big merchants' emperor". 42 Mer-
chants subsidized the Gold River campaigns and the later wars against the
Gurkhas with millions of taels of contributions (a kind of tax equivalent
to the regular taxation of entrepreneurship that was not levied), 43 and this
social group, much more than the imperial bureaucracy, organized the
logistics of the second Gold River campaign. These two trends went hand
in hand. Although this did not concern the warriors, it may well have been
that the example of the Banner and Green Standard soldiers, who did receive
wages, stimulated the recruitment of military labourers who were to receive
40 Theobald, "The Second Jinchuan Campaign", p. 137.
41 Dai, The Sichuan Frontier and Tibet, esp. ch. 6, and "The Qing State, Merchants, and the
Military Labor Force in the Jinchuan Campaigns".
42 Woodside, "The Ch'ien-lung Reign": "the salt merchants' emperor" (p. 240), "the big mer-
chants' emperor" (p. 241), "merchant-loving emperor" (p. 267), or the Qianlong period as a "reign
of plutocracy" (p. 239).
43 Ibid., p. 273. One tael of silver equals about 37.5 grammes at 95 per cent purity.
364
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
wages and food provisions like the soldiers. The emperor, despite the im-
mense assistance the private hiring of porters provided the supplying of
the troops, did not want to use the procedures of the Gold River campaign
as a precedent for future wars. Officially, the problem was not the price of
labour, since the logistics managers learned soon that it was as expensive
to have an entrepreneur ship the rice as to have this done by the local
magistrates. The core of the problem was rather the professed systematic
mistrust of private entrepreneurship from the central government, which
was convinced that supplying the army should remain per definitionem a
task of local government. Yet it is not easy to assess how many of this type
of statement decreed by the emperor were purely rhetorical, or to what
extent the emperor's mistrust was instead targeted towards an eventual
embezzlement of funds which, as the logistics managers claimed, were
necessary to pay the "expensive" private entrepreneurs.
Perusal of specific cases, if they have generated as much paperwork
as that of the Gold River campaigns, can shed light on processes in the
organization of military labour. These would remain hidden if the normative
statutes and regulations about military organization alone were studied.
Most of the campaigns of the Qianlong emperor are well documented and
have left information, including such about military labour and service,
which can be applied for further research. For instance, one topic is whether
the first Gold River campaign (1747-1749) really was the one in which hired
labour was engaged for the first time. 44
Recently, the conventional wisdom that Chinese civilization was dis-
tinctly civilian and anti-military in outlook is being revised by several
authors, for instance by Harriet Zurndorfer, Rui Magone, and Hans van
de Ven. 45 It is correct that, for extended periods of time, it was centralized
imperial power that prevailed in China rather than military competition
between small states and polities, as in Europe. However, this does not mean
44 The regulations for war expenditure in the Junxu zeli (Xuxiu siku quanshu edn), Hubu junxu
zeli, ch. 5, claim that the two Gold River campaigns were the sole instances when merchants were
hired to procure and transport grain for the troops. Yet there is some evidence that as early as
1735 merchants were assigned to transport grain to the camps; see for instance Pingdingjunggar
fanglue (Siku quanshu, Wenyuange edn, digital versionZhongguojibengujiku), Qianbian (First
part) 39 (YZi3/io/jiashen=ig [2 December 1735], i2/wuzi=23 [4 February 1735]), Qianbian 42 (QL
i/6/dinghai=28 [28 January 1737]) or Qianbian 44 (QL 4/4/yiyou=g [16 May 1739]). Merchants or
owners of camel herds were apparently able to ship grain at a lower price than the government
with its "official camels" (guantuo).
45 Zurndorfer, "What Is the Meaning of 'War' in an Age of Cultural Efflorescence?"; Magone,
"Die Dichotomie von Zivilem und Militarischem in der Qing-Dynastie", pp. 18-23; van de Ven,
"Introduction".
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
365
that military organization was unimportant at any time in Chinese history 46
The idea that it was the prevention of warfare and "victory without war" that
preoccupied the Chinese, rather than warfare aiming at decisive victory and
the annihilation of enemy forces, is being discredited. 47 At the same time,
the often cited Chinese proverb that "a good man doesn't become a soldier,
good iron is not made into nails", points to a preference for the civilian
sphere that lasted for hundreds of years. It stands in conjunction with lesser
prestige for military than for civilian occupations and leadership functions.
Such ideas were overcome in periods of dynastic or systemic change as in
the twentieth century. Yet in view of the present brush-up of the military
image, it seems necessary to keep the focus on the actual priority that was
given to civilian office until the twentieth century.
Labour relations in Qing dynasty military occupations
Military labour can occur in all of the three great categories described in
the taxonomy developed by the Global Collaboratory on the History of
Labour Relations: namely reciprocal, tributary, and commodified. Recipro-
cal labour implies that workers provide labour within the household and
the community. In most parts of the world from 1650 to 1800, this consisted
of agricultural labour and mostly unpaid household work. However, it can
also apply in some hunter-gatherer village communities, where defensive
and hunting duties might form part of the (mostly) male life cycle. At the
borders of Qing China, such arrangements are known in the Taiwanese
indigenous population, where boys and men between age six and forty were
expected to serve their community in this type of occupation.
In larger polities that cannot be regarded as part of the extended family,
the labour power of the populace is often considered to be the property of
the state or feudal and religious authorities. This work is not commodified,
and the respective labour relations have been designated as "tributary".
For military labour, this type of labour relation can be found in military
conscription, military corvee, and obligatory supply services of all kinds.
A third category consists of commodified labour. This is the case if an em-
ployer acquires labour power and usually pays for it. In the case of military
labour, mercenary troops and commissioned armies belong to this type.
46 Van de Ven, "Introduction", p. 11.
47 Ibid., p. 2, citing Geoffrey Parker.
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CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
If applied to the armies of the Qing dynasty, the specific situations need
to be assessed separately for the Eight Banners, the competitors to the
Banner Armies in the Ming-Qing transition, the Green Standard Army
supply services, specialists, civilian officials, militia troops, the Taiping
army and provincial armies, and the new armies established after 1865.
The Eight Banners constitute an example of polyethnic, tributary labour
that was a "hereditary privilege", 48 rather than an onerous obligation. The
court had taken the political decision to support this "conquest elite" in
money and kind, even if they were not active in military or civilian service. 49
Banner people were not supposed or allowed to take up occupations other
than service for the state. This could be military for combat or garrison duty,
but also civilian. 50 It was only near the end of Qing rule, in 1863, that the
ban on market-oriented occupations was officially lifted. 51 In other words,
this type of labour was not entirely free, since it was linked to descent, and
formally options other than service were not allowed.
While the Green Standard troops also supervised the postal service,
patrolled cities and spots of strategic importance, caught bandits, and sup-
pressed rebellions, the Banner troops were mainly deployed to wage war. Yet
there were also exceptions like the Guards Brigade in the capital which had
to provide personnel to protect the imperial palace. Banner troops were not
generally used when a crisis erupted. Most wars began as a local problem
of unrest or an imminent threat to a particular locality. Therefore, the first
troops to be dispatched were Green Standard troops, not Banner troops. If
a local crisis expanded into a war, it was still considered a local affair for
which the governor-general of the respective region was responsible. In
such cases Banner troops from the local Banner garrison(s) were dispatched
to support the Green Standard units. Yet the Banner garrisons were quite
small and could mobilize only a small number of troops. If not sufficient,
Green Standard troops from other provinces were also sent for assistance.
In contrast, elite Banner troops from the capital and the north-east were
sent to the war theatre only if really necessary. Bannermen, although more
expensive than Green Standard troops, also proved to be more effective. The
designations of particular Banner platoons (like huoqiying "Firearms Bri-
48 Elliott, TheManchu Way, p. 308.
49 Compare ibid., p. 201, who points out that, if the Banner people failed to find work, it had
to be found for them, "by way of pretext for the payment of a salary".
50 Crossley, "The Conquest Elite of the Ch'ing Empire", p. 318, who lists work as "salaried
policemen, foot soldiers, scribes, teachers, porters, and accountants in the segregated urban
garrison communities" as typical occupations of the Banner people.
51 Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 311.
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
367
gade", pao xiaoji "artillerymen", or niaoqiang canting "musketry regimental
commander") in the Qing statutes date from the early eighteenth century.
Therefore it is not certain how many troops had muskets, cannons, and
howitzers, and how many of them had to fight with bows and arrows. The
latter were seen as genuinely Manchurian and were of great use in the wars
against the Dzungars. The copper-plate engravings 5 * depicting the victories
of the Qing show a high number of mounted archers, but also musketeers,
gunners, and sword-fighters. Gunnery seemed not to have been a monopoly
of the Artillery Brigade in the capital. Guns or howitzers were in many cases
cast on the spot, for which purpose experts had to be available.
When dispatched to the battlefield, Banner troops were given so-called
baggage pay (xingzhuangyiri) that was different for each officer rank. It
was higher for Banner troops from the north-east than for those from the
provincial garrisons elsewhere, but lower than the baggage pay for the
troops from the capital. On the way to the theater of war and in the field,
the troops were given a so-called salt-and-vegetable (or "salted vegetable")
pay (yancaiyin) to buy food. The regulations concerning the baggage pay,
the salt-and-vegetable pay, and the number of menservants and horses an
officer versus a common soldier could dispose of were extremely complex.
In the beginning, the regulations differed from province to province,
and there were many imbalances so that by the late 1770s the emperor
ordered the compilation of a nationwide code of regulations for military
expenditure, the Junxuzeli. The level of payment in this code was generally
somewhat higher than before. The baggage pay was a quite high amount
and was roughly equal to one year's salary. It could be paid out to the family
that remained in the home garrison, but it could also be forwarded to the
destination where it was paid out in the camp. From this money, the soldier
had to acquire weapons, clothing, a tent, and a horse, but there also was
sufficient money left over to pay back his debts. 53 No wonder a war was
seen as an ideal opportunity to make money. The salt-and-vegetable pay
was not very high. It was meant to be just sufficient to still hunger and to
regenerate physical strength. Alongside this, everybody was given a fixed
amount of rice (about one litre) per day. The distribution of rice was to
prevent the tendency to save money instead of spending it on food. Yet
there were also cases reported where troops sold their rice in order to earn
52 Examples of monochrome battle pictures can be seen at: "The Battle Copper Prints", owned
by Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, electronic publication http://crossasia.org/digital/schlachten-
bilder/index/english-start (accessed 20 October 2013).
53 On the financial situation of the Bannermen, see Elliott, The Manchu Way, pp. 313-322.
368
CHRISTINE MOLL-MURATA AND ULRICH THEOBALD
some cash. 54 The duration of service is not easy to assess. Banner troops
had a lifelong obligation to serve, but their actual service in war depended
on the location of the garrison and the length of the campaign. Troops
from the coastal provinces were very rarely involved in wars: only during
those against Burma, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The garrisons with the highest
potential to be activated for campaigning were located in Shaanxi, Gansu,
Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan (the "belly of the empire"), the capital Beijing, and
the north-east. The longest single campaign of the eighteenth century was
the second campaign in the Gold River region, which lasted for fifty months.
Furloughs were totally unknown, unless a soldier was wounded. In this case,
he was granted three months' leave, and he could also return to his home
garrison during that time. The Banner troops served thirty-one months
on average, Green Standard troops thirty-eight months, and native troops
forty months. 55
The bondservants, who served, among other obligations, as supply forces
for the Eight Banner soldiers and officers, were less free than the warriors,
but some among their ranks could gain great personal influence and wealth.
For instance Cao Yin (1658-1712), the director of the Imperial Silk Weaveries
in Nanjing and concurrently supervisor of salt production and distribution
in central China, gained those important civilian positions due to his close
personal relationship to the Kangxi emperor. 56 Yet few bondservants rose
that high. Most spent lives dependent upon their Banners and the household
they were assigned to. Elliott gives figures of the ratios of dependants per
employed Bannerman as 10:1 in locations with lesser work opportunities,
but for Beijing about 5U. 57
Not all dependants were bondservants. One group that stood even lower
in the hierarchy were the slaves that were assigned to specific Banner house-
holds which they could not leave. However, social mobility was possible.
Thus, many slaves could rise to the ranks of bondservants. 58 The specific
tasks of the dependants of Bannermen in warfare still need to be explored.
However, a few words can be said about the special type of manservant
(genyi, literally "follower servant") 59 that each warrior (officer or common
54 Pingding Liang Jinchuanfangliie, 57, fols 25b-26b (QL 38/r3/dinghai=28).
55 Theobald, "The Second Jinchuan Campaign", pp. 130-132.
56 Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, pp. 740-742.
57 Elliott, The Manchu Way, p. 117.
58 Ibid., p. 51.
59 The termyi is the same word as for unpaid corvee labour of ancient times, making it seem-
ingly a kind of slave labour, which is not correct. The Manchu term is dahaltu, which also means
"following servant".
MILITARY EMPLOYMENT IN QING DYNASTY CHINA
369
soldier) disposed of during wartime. The menservants were important for
the everyday processes of a campaigning army. They served their masters
in erecting the tents, cooking food, cleaning clothing and weaponry, guid-
ing the sumpter-mules, cutting grass for the horses, carrying letters, or
forwarding information; some were used as translators. The menservants
of the Green Standard troops could even be used as soldiers and therefore
in some provinces were called "supplementary troops" (yuding). Although
most sources speaking of menservants are related to campaigning, there is
also evidence that they were used in peacetime and for civilian purposes.
This circumstance and the fact that menservants to the Green Standard
troops were automatically seen as part of the corps lead to the conclusion
that they were not explicitly recruited for warfare but were permanently
affiliated to military households. In the case of the Banner households it
has to be assumed that bondservants and slaves took over this role, while
in the case of the Green Standard this function may have been performed
by sons, youngsters, and new recruits (xinmubing). Even native officers
were allowed the privilege of maintaining menservants.
Menservants thus stayed with their masters in the war theatre as long as
the latter had to fight. If their masters died, they were obliged to bring back
the coffins. Yet this applied only to Banner officers, not to common soldiers,
and was not the case for the Green Standard officers. Menservants were
also paid out salt-and-vegetable money and wer 